Dear all,
yesterday, a few hours were spent analysing numerous on-line resources:
I Spent some more time on the London Gazette. I restricted the search (again) to a small period of June to October 1919 where we believe that AEH was Commissioned as a Temp 2nd L/t. I Then used numerous permutations of Surnames and Christian names without any obvious success, apart from one man....!
One really salient point is that there was one A E Harrison mentioned within this date range. This Officer had a change made to his Rank on May 12th 1919, this change was published on October 14th 1919 in the LG. Subsequently, five days later, Nora Harrison in Australia was notified via a "Form of Commission" that her estranged husband Ex Capt A E Harrison had been Commissioned into a British Regular Force.
This man is well known to me and re-researched recently by Roger and JDS1959 at the British Archives. This fellow is Alfred Ernest Harrison who was to be an Acting Captain promoted from a L/t in the Beds and Herts. This man has impeccable credentials and history, he joined the military as a Private in 1915 was Commissioned in 19/12/1916 and Gazetted on the 31/01/1917. When AEH/AIF was in Perham Down in Custody, The above British AE Harrison was wounded in Ypres France. So definitely this fellow is who he says he is.
It does disturb me, that there is only a few days between the LG published details of AE Harrison of Beds and Herts and the subsequent correspondence to Nora Harrison in Australia, regarding her estranged husband AIF-AE Harrison. There is just one relatively subjective reason that I continue to pursue the military aspects of AEH/AIF who was apparently Commissioned into a British Regular Force.
The rank mentioned in the "Form of Commission" is described quite positively as a "T2ndL/t in the first instance" and the above British, Alfred Ernest Harrison was never a T2L/t and his Gazzette entry was not for a T2L/t. This can only mean it's another man, and that man whatever his name, must be described in the London Gazette as every Military Rank change was Gazetted in this publication.
The upshot of this new epiphany, is a new approach.
I am going to extract from the LG all the T2ndL/t's and 2ndL/t's of any name, that were Commissioned or joined any Regular British Service from January 1919 to October 1919. I am guessing, that there will not be very many men who meet this criteria. At this time in 1919 the war was well over and there were thousands if not millions of NCO's and Officers leaving the service. The LG describes this exodus in detail
Importantly, relatively few were joining or being Commissioned in 1919, In fact to be honest I can't believe that any men were receiving Commissions at this stage, given that so many well qualified and previously Commissioned men were being dismissed, discharged and demobilised back into Civilian life.
I again confirm, that in my opinion, Medal Index Cards can't be used reliably to determine a man's existence or not. I am consistently confronted with Service Records of Officers and NCO's not having MIC's, I initially thought that all men would naturally have a card, this is not the case.
Notwithstanding the above regarding MIC's, I checked the MIC's for Harrison's in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, there were 113 in total and 2 Officers, none of which could have been AEH, at this stage.
The engrossing of the book ANZACS in Archangel continues without any obvious result, save, an interesting story.
If anyone has any thoughts on this new theory, I'd be really interested to hear of them..!
Cheers
Ian
PS: In relation to the Welsh Fusiliers badge, speaking with my son yesterday regarding badges, he reports that it is not uncommon for soldiers to swap badges and he reports that he has many military badges from all over the world. He's now in the Royal Engineers AIF Reserve. Perhaps, this is an explanation for the appearence of the RWF badge.
