Help: Court Martialled & Missing in UK, Capt: Albert Edward Harrison AIF

[Craven-Harrison]

Dear all,

 I thought I'd report on the first pass of the August 1918 Army list, I'm beginning to understand the workings of this text and the viewer, there are some technical anomalies, the usual OCR digitising and Viewer search engine difficulties, but we are lucky to have it

Below is my first impressions and some comments on some of the men, I'll keep going over the next few days and post again when there is some more concrete info

Some of these blokes require some more research, but as I haven't actually seen that many British Service Records It's difficult to dismiss them without more info, but I'm onto it

~~~~~~~~-----------------

>>

Harrison A -----New Armies  1327f
This fellow is A Harrison DSO and is mentioned widely in the LG for several actions of valor. He was attached to the Loyal Nth Lancashire Reg,  Commissioned July 1st 1917

Harrison A  -  Aust Contgt      1899c
This fellow is probably AEH, he is mentioned in the index but he is not mentioned in the detail section on page 1899c, however residing at this location is the West and South Australian 11th  and 12th Btn (Australian Overseas Forces) Then at page 1900cc is the 19th Btn which is AEH’s Australian unit only a couple of pages away from 1899.

I believe that the detail was removed possibly at Dismissal around August 28th 1917 or possibly at Discharge in England on August 28th 1918 and the index has remained in-situ and remained in error describing him and pointing to the wrong page, this  seems to add up to me. Interestingly if it is AEH he is described here as A Harrison, without the E. Importantly, this is one year after Dismissal from the AIF and obviously not a British unit…!

R-     Harrison A   659g

R-     Harrison A   655h, 659g

Harrison A   Ches Rg   1101c

T-     Harrison A   R Scots   901c  1562j
This is A Harrison of the Royal Scots Lothian Reg MG Commissioned June 1st 1916

T-     Harrison A             1615b

Harrison A  Suff Rg   1016d
This is A Harrison of The Suffolk Reg Commissioned June 19th 1918  (2)

Harrison A North’d   Fus  942d

Harrison A    E Kent Rg  920
This is the East Kent fellow that we researched some time ago (I think)

Harrison A    ASC      1656
A Harrison T2L/t of the Army Service Corps Commissioned Aug 26th 1917

Harrison A   RFA 598b

I think this fellow is A Harrison of the Royal Field Artillery a 2L/t Commissioned Feb 25th 1918 in the Special Reserve

Harrison A   A    1401, 1404c
This is AA Harrison  of Allied  Reg of Dominion of NZ  8th Southern Reg Capt 4th Batt

T       Harrison A  E   990 :-
This is Alfred Ernest Harrison of Bed & Herts and Norfolk fame at this point a Major 19th June 1918 4th Btn Territorial, not my man

Harrison A E Res of Off 2320 & 2639 
This is Major AE Harrison who was commissioned in 15 Dec 1908 and was in the Reserve of Officers, this fellow is known and not our fellow. He is the first fellow in my LG sequential list.  Page 2639 is not in the List it refers to Officers Graduations and apparently in some versions of the Army list these are omitted intentionally

T  =  Territorial Service
R  =  Special Reserve Of Officers

[Craven-Harrison]

G'day JDS,

thanks for the New Army explanation, Crikey..! the old Army was only a couple of years old.....LOL

Roger, I haven't got anything else to go on for you apart from the 130 Bulchas fellow. I keep getting sidetracked, not that I mind doing that but other things fall off the list as the memory gets strained, even my daily notes are getting complicated. I started being organised and now I've got research everywhere, Mr's H isn't happy...LOL

The stuff I was trying to get posted was the entire A Harrison WO lists, and they are nearly ready but not quite, but there wasn't anything there that I could see that was relating to India anyway....(I think)..?

I think there is another A Harrison from the Indian Railway (something or other), I saw him years ago, If you come across this bloke I'd be interested also

Thanks

Guys

[Craven-Harrison]

Dear Robyn,

Talk about fascinating, your story certainly puts another perspective on alternate names. I must admit that I hadn't considered a name created by the Military, but I guess if you were going behind lines or potentially caught as a spy, you wouldn't want your family back home in some danger and there is probably another dozen interesting reasons for alternate names.

I would hope that eventually there would be correct naming if they were killed in action, perhaps that's why we have lots of missing blokes, they are buried or lost under another name .

Interesting to hear of your mum working on engines with the RAAF, where was she stationed?

Please thank your mum for this interesting story, once again another direction to follow. Although I think that having him Court Martialed and sacked form the AIF was designed to remove him from possible further trouble. The chance that he was using an assumed name still exists but if he did the chances of finding him become increasingly more difficult.

Now here is a good question, where is the WW1 British Military Alias name list? Probably in the German archives...LOL

Thanks Robyn

Ian

[Craven-Harrison]

Dear Roger and JDS,

I've posted below the National Archives  "WO" Harrison list, I think it all of them and between the three of us we have done about a dozen (I think) if you can remember which numbers you have done could you please cross them off the list in some way, I will do the same in the next few days




WO 374/31331
HARRISON, Lieut A
1914-1920

WO 374/31332
HARRISON, Capt A E
1915-1920

WO 374/31333
HARRISON, Lieut A F
1916-1920; 1923

WO 374/31334
HARRISON, Lieut A H
1915-1919; 1930

WO 374/31335
HARRISON, Capt A H
1916-1919

WO 374/31336
HARRISON, 2/Lieut A K
1915-1919

WO 374/31337
HARRISON, Lieut A L
1917-1920

WO 374/31338
HARRISON, Lieut A N
1914-1920

WO 374/31339
HARRISON, Lieut A R
1915-1919

WO 374/31340
HARRISON, 2/Lieut A R
1914-1920

WO 374/31341
HARRISON, 2/Lieut A S
1918-1919

WO 374/31342
HARRISON, Revd A S C
1914-1921

WO 374/31343
HARRISON, 2/Lieut A V
1915-

WO 339/51234
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/54918
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/83679
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/131387
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/132051
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/139173
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/6774
HARRISON J de C, Capt
1907-1916

WO 339/13223
HARRISON A, Capt
1914-1921

WO 339/25049
HARRISON A A, Capt
1914-1920

WO 339/41100
HARRISON A W, 2/Lieut
1915-1917

WO 339/61000
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/70076
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/70553
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/71139
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/77131
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/83679
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/98317
HARRISON A
[1914-1922

WO 339/109822
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/113906
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/128539
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/131387
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/132051
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

WO 339/139173
HARRISON A
[1914-1922]

[regross]

Hi

We do tend to forget about the spy's and special forces etc. They were top secret and hush hush etc and these units obviously attracted men looking for excitement and danger. They still do.

Of course the army would deny their existance and the government would cover it up. It would be interesting to know if there are any accessible records on these special goups. I suspect that they would all have been destroyed during WW2 .

Ian my mother was based in Sale airforce base in Victoria


good hunting

Robyn

[Redroger]

Ian, Robyn's thoughts about special units do make sense in view of some of the things we though AEH might be involved in, Russia etc. Off to Baluchistan tomorrow, metaphorically not physically, will look out for the Indian Railway guy too.The guy in the index, but not the body of the Army list I feel confident is AEH.Just one slight caveat, this error is the commonest made in my experience; one I was always careful to avoid when covering my back at various times.

[Craven-Harrison]

Robyn and Roger,,,

my recently retired Brother in law was a Vietnam Vet conscript, in the process of arranging his pension with the Dept of Vet Affairs there was some discussion regarding his role in the War.

He was loosely attached to the US Army but still in the AIF. He had a hard time over there and needed to explain some post War Psyc issues with them, they flatly refused to admit these things had happend to him or that they had happened at all. He wrote to all and sundry and they called a meeting. He was left in no doubt that this meeting was about convincing him that these events never took place and he shouldn't ever mention them again.

He was expected to turn up to the meeting alone he took ten other Army mates with him, the Army wasn't happy at all. It sort of changed the way they understood the history was written. They requested that the men never speak of the issues again as they were secret. There were no changes made to their respective records.

Robyn, I thought it might be Sale, please ask your mum if she knew a Pilot Officer Eddy Humphris and a WAF Norma Kruska, my Parents in Law. They were both at Sale in WW2, Ed was seconded to the RAF in the UK and was a Pathfinder Pilot all over Europe.

Roger, good luck at the BL and yes I agree about the Index fellow being AEH, I will still research each British A Harrison officer listed for exclusion purposes.

Could I please ask you to jot down the Vitals of any man researched, so that I can use the info for exclusion purposes, just a half a dozen distinguishing facts, perhaps we should develop some rules or criteria....?


"Too many secrets"...!!

Cheers

Ian

[jds1949]

Ian,

I managed a chat with the expert at Kew today. He was sure that if there ever had been an actual list of men whose medals were withheld there was certainly no list still in existence at the National Archives. He also agreed that the officers' files that were weeded were almost certainly either men who were commissioned at the end of the war and who probably did not serve for very long or young men whose next of kin was their parents, and, again, did not have any great length of service. He also checked to see if anything relating to AEH's file [the WO338 long list one] had been kept. Apparently when the files were weeded a very small percentage had the correspondence relating to them retained - unfortunately his was not one of them.

I had a few moments at the end of the day and so I did a quick check on passenger lists from UK to Australia. [The expert suggested that just because a man left the UK as Joe Bloggs, he didn't necessarily arrive in Australia with the same name]. There were two that seemed possible:

Albert Edmund Harrison
Date of birth: 1888 [calculated from age]
Engineer
Sailed on P 7 O Ship "Barrabool"
Departed London 20th December 1924
Destination: Melbourne
[There were two other Harrisons on board - Frederick Leonard and Sidney]

More promising though was:
Mr Albert Harrison
Date of birth: 1887 [calculated from age]
Age 34
Apearist [sic]
Sailed on Aberdeen Line's Ship "Themistocles"
Departed 2nd July 1921 from London
Destination: Albany [King George Sound]

There was a Miss Marguerite Harrison on board,, but not seemingly travelling with him. He gave an address that looks like 26, Dalan Street, Nelson [that's in Lancashire] - In the column headed: "Country of Last Permanent Residence" he is ticked as "British Possessions"

I know that you've done some work on the passenger lists from your end - does the Albert above figure in you list?

Sorry I didn't have any more time - I'm working on a project which has a deadline - so time is at a premium.

jds1949

[regross]

I am pondering the reason why in his Australian War Record Albert Edward Harrison gives as his date of birth 28th of August 1876?

Also noted is that he served in South Africa for 2 years  was this the Boer War? DO you have any records of this service?

His age is clearly 38 years and 6 months on the enlistment papers. Do you have other documntation which supports the 1888 year you are looking at as his year of birth? Certainly it would make him far too young to have served in South Africa.

The 86 page digital copy of his record is very clear and comprehensive and one symapthises with NOra's plight when he failed to return to Australia as expected.

It is possible that he  instead of remaining in England he returned to South Africa and not to Australia.


just some thoughts


Robyn