Tracing Your Great War Ancestors Page 6

  CASUALTIES

  Just over 700,000 British men and a few dozen women were killed during the First World War and many hundreds of thousands more received some form of medical treatment. During the Gallipoli campaign nearly 60,000 Allied troops lost their lives and over 120,000 were wounded in some way.

  Wounded men lying in Gully Ravine. The ravine was the centre of a major action at the end of June 1915.

  This can be broken down as follows:

  On the Ottoman side, there were 56,643 deaths and 107,007 men wounded. In addition 11,178 men were made prisoners of war.

  Each of the 46,909 British and Commonwealth deaths is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Commission maintains cemeteries in 150 countries across the world. You can find more about its work and its history on its website: www.cwgc.org.

  There are thirty-one cemeteries on the Gallipoli peninsula: six at Helles (plus the only solitary grave: that of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Doughty-Wylie VC, Royal Welch Fusiliers), four at Suvla and twenty-one at Anzac. Many of those killed in action, and those who died on hospital ships and were buried at sea, have no known grave. These men’s names are recorded on one of five memorials to the missing: the Lone Pine Memorial commemorates Australians killed in the Anzac sector, as well as New Zealanders with no known grave or who were buried at sea, while the Lone Pine, Hill 60 and Chunuk Bair Memorials commemorate New Zealanders who died at Anzac. There is also a memorial at Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery commemorating the New Zealanders killed in the Helles sector, while British, Indian and Australian troops who died there are commemorated on the Helles Memorial at the tip of Cape Helles. This is the largest memorial, with 21,000 names inscribed on panels around a 30-metre-high obelisk. There are two more CWGC cemeteries on the Greek island of Limnos. This was the hospital base for the Allied forces in Gallipoli and most of the men buried here were those who had died of their wounds.

  A database of war deaths is also available through the CWGC website. It is one of the key resources for First World War research and is very easy to use. You can search by name, regiment or cemetery, and filter searches by service, nationality or year of death.

  For each individual the register will tell you: the name that appears on the gravestone (generally, but not always, a man’s full name); the date of his death; his age (if known) and nationality; his rank, service number (if appropriate) and the unit to which he belonged; and the cemetery and plot number where he is buried or, for men who have no known grave, the plaque on the appropriate memorial to the missing on which his name has been engraved.

  The Aquitania was a pre-war Atlantic liner, which was converted into a hospital ship during the Dardanelles Campaign. She carried several thousand sick and wounded men to hospitals in Malta or even back to England.

  In addition, there may also be a brief note about a man’s parents or wife, any special inscription chosen by the family for his grave, and perhaps whether he was attached to another regiment at the time of death. For Captain Owen Day of the 2nd Hampshires, who was killed on 6 August, there is a note that he was the ‘son of Arthur James Day and Georgiana, his wife, of 17, Archers Rd., Southampton’. This additional information was supplied by the family as the Commission contacted relatives to give them the opportunity to add personal details. The Commission is currently digitising its archives, and some additional information should be online by the time this book is published.

  The exact location of a grave in any Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery is indicated after the entry by a series of letters and numbers. The initial Roman numeral indicates the plot, while the row within that plot is specified by a capital letter and the individual grave by a number. Thus II B 28 indicates plot II, row B, grave 28. In the registers of cemeteries that are not divided into plots, the row is indicated by a capital letter following the entry and the grave by a number. Thus D 12 indicates Row D, Grave 12.

  It is possible to obtain photographs of war graves without visiting the cemeteries by contacting The War Graves Photographic Project (http://twgpp.org). The website includes an index which allows you to see whether there is already a photograph of the grave you are interested in. If there is, you can call up a low resolution image of the gravestone (or entry on the appropriate memorial for men who have no known grave). You can also obtain a high resolution image of the stone for a donation. They recommend a very reasonable £3.50. More details are, of course, on the website.

  SOLDIERS DIED IN THE GREAT WAR

  A little more information can be found in the Soldiers Died in the Great War databases available through both Ancestry and Findmypast. This list was originally compiled after the Armistice by the War Office. Soldiers Died contains additional details to those provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, notably the place and date of enlistment and home address. Sometimes a birth place is given, as well as a brief description of how they died, usually ‘killed in action’, but sometimes ‘died of wounds’.

  ROLLS OF HONOUR

  One phenomenon that arose out of the war was the roll of honour: a published list of the deceased (and occasionally other groups of servicemen such as prisoners of war). Rolls are often available for workplaces (including local councils and railway companies), chapels and small communities. They are definitely worth looking out for, although in most cases the information they contain can as easily be obtained from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission or Soldiers Died in the Great War databases.

  There is no nationwide set of these rolls, although the Imperial War Museum and British Library almost certainly have the largest collections. Archives and local study libraries may have copies of rolls for their area. A number have been republished by the Naval & Military Press (www.naval-military-press.com).

  There are several national rolls. Entries for some 26,000 officers and other ranks (including 7,000 photographs) were collected and published in 1917 by the Marquis Melville de Ruvigny, a noted genealogist of the period. De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour: A Biographical Record of His Majesty’s Military and Aerial Forces Who Fell in the Great War 1914–1917 is available on Ancestry and Findmypast, but is often overlooked by researchers. There is, for example, a detailed biography of Captain Owen Day of the 2nd Hampshires, including a photograph and a description of how he gallantly met his death attacking enemy trenches.

  After the war some tens of thousands of war memorials were erected in honour of the men who did not return. They are still common features in towns and villages. As well as those commemorating the dead from a particular town or area, there are many memorials for schools, churches or work places.

  The UK National Inventory of War Memorials at the Imperial War Museum has prepared a database of some 55,000 memorials at www.ukniwm.org.uk, of which 488 are dedicated to the men and units that fought at Gallipoli, ranging from a general plaque in St Paul’s Cathedral to a stained-glass triptych dedicated to Captain Owen Heathcote Lacy Day of the 2nd Hampshire Regiment, which was originally in St Mary’s Church, Southampton. Day was killed on 6 August 1915 and he lies buried at Twelve Trees Copse Cemetery. The results may include a full transcript of the dedication, a physical description of the memorial, and an account of why and how it came to be created. Sometimes there is a photograph as well. An increasing number of entries include listings of all the individuals commemorated on the memorial.

  If you are researching an Irish soldier or unit, check out the Irish War Memorials website (www.irishwarmemorials.ie), which lists many memorials to the fallen in both the North and the South, and there are indexes both to individuals and to places.

  Scotland’s war dead are honoured at the Scots National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle. More information can be found at www.snwm.org.

  HOSPITAL RECORDS

  If the service record for your man survives, it should contain a Casualty Form (Form B103) which will record visits to the doctor, admissions to hospital and so on. Of course, many entries mention war-related wounds, but a surprising number of
entries concern everyday ailments and complaints. The forms can sometimes be difficult to decode because they also contain details of postings, promotions and demotions, as well as punishments.

  An efficient system for dealing with casualties was quickly introduced on the outbreak of war to ferry the sick and wounded to the appropriate casualty clearing station or hospital in the rear. Certainly this was the case on the Western Front, where the system considerably reduced the number of deaths.

  On Gallipoli the position was somewhat different. Here the medical resources were inadequate, and the situation was not helped by the fact that the terrain and the close nature of the fighting made it difficult to carry the wounded back to the casualty clearing stations, let alone to the beaches from where they were ferried to the waiting hospital ships. One of the most iconic images of the campaign for Australians is ‘Simpson and his donkey’. John Simpson was a stretcher-bearer in the Australian Army Medical Corps. Using one of the donkeys brought in for carrying water, he transported wounded men day and night from the fighting in Monash Valley to the beach on Anzac Cove. He did so, according to the Australian official historian Charles Bean, despite ‘deadly sniping down the valley and the most furious shrapnel fire’. He was killed by machine-gun fire while carrying two wounded men on 19 May and was buried on the beach at Hell Spit. The war diary of the 3rd Field Ambulance commended ‘the excellence of the work performed by Pte Simpson continuously since landing’. Simpson was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches.

  A card was completed for each man, which accompanied him at all times, but the records (with the exception of a small sample) have long since been destroyed. The National Archives has samples of a few medical-related and hospital admission records in series MH 106. Among them can be found nine admissions and discharge books for the hospital ship Assaye, which evacuated casualties from Cape Helles, Anzac and Suvla Bay. The books contain details of men’s names, unit and rank, as well as the injuries they had suffered. A few medical operations were also carried out on board, and these are briefly listed by type and outcome. If a death occurred this is also recorded, and in rare instances the latitude and longitude are given if the man was buried at sea. At the time of writing the registers are being digitised and, with luck, they should be available on the Forces Records website by the time this book has been published.

  An iconic shot of an Anzac soldier carrying a wounded comrade to a dressing station.

  Sue Light has an excellent guide to medical records at www.scarletfinders.co.uk/125.htm.

  A dressing station at Suvla Beach. Here men were either treated or made ready for transfer to a hospital ship.

  GALLANTRY MEDALS

  Gallantry medals were awarded for acts of heroism and bravery on the field of battle. Some medals were awarded immediately for special acts (sometimes referred to as being awarded ‘in the field’), while others – known as non-immediate – might be awarded weeks or months after the act. Inevitably medals were issued on an almost indiscriminate basis: some men who won them probably did not deserve them, while other men’s heroic acts remained unrecognised. Tim Travers cites the example of Private Albert Wilkin of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who was bravely defending his position against a rain of Turkish bombs. He courageously threw several bombs back before they could explode, but the fifth one he picked up exploded, blowing him to pieces.

  The best known gallantry medal is undoubtedly the Victoria Cross. A register of VC winners can be found in series WO 98 at Kew, together with copies of their citations, and other information is also available online on Discovery. Details of the three dozen VC winners at Gallipoli is given at www.gallipoli-association.org/content/men-of-gallipoli/gallipoli-vc’s. More information about each of the winners and how they won the award is given in Gerald Gliddon, VCs of the First World War: the Side Shows (The History Press, 2014).

  The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) was normally awarded only to senior officers, while the Military Cross (MC) was awarded for acts of bravery to officers of the rank of captain or below. The equivalents for non-commissioned officers and other ranks were the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM).

  In many cases non-immediate gallantry awards were given out almost randomly to members of a platoon or company who had seen action. Often men were asked to nominate comrades who should be honoured.

  If there isn’t a family story about the award of a gallantry medal, or you have the medal itself, there may be a note on the Medal Index Card or, more rarely, in the service record. Details of all gallantry awards were published in the London Gazette, sometimes with a citation (that is, a short description of why the medal was awarded). At the very least you will find the man’s name, service number (not officers), rank, regiment and the date when the award was made. For awards of the Military Medal (MM), this is the only information you are likely to find. If your man was in the Royal Artillery, Findmypast has a list of RA men who won the Military Medal with the date their award was gazetted. Citations for awards of the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) can be found on both Ancestry and Findmypast. They usually duplicate what is in the London Gazette but are certainly easier to use.

  If you are lucky, you may be able to work out exactly why the medal was awarded from the war diaries. In addition, the awarding of gallantry medals to both officers and other ranks is often mentioned in war diaries.

  There are also some Medal Index Cards for men awarded the DCM and MM. They give little more than the date and page number in the London Gazette where the award is listed, but beware: in my experience the reference is often wrong.

  The award of gallantry medals awards may well feature in newspaper stories. The most common award was the Mention in Despatches (MiD) for acts of bravery or service that warranted reward, but was not enough to merit a gallantry award. Awards are listed in the London Gazette. The fact that a man was awarded a MiD is usually shown on the Medal Index Card (often abbreviated to EM or EMB with a date when the award was published in the Gazette). There may also be separate cards with the approximate date the award was gazetted.

  Further Reading

  More about medals (both gallantry and campaign) can be found in Peter Duckers, British Military Medals: a Guide for Collectors and Researchers (2nd edn, Pen & Sword, 2013). Also useful is the Medals Yearbook published annually by Token Publishing.

  COURTS MARTIAL

  Nearly 300,000 soldiers and 6,000 officers faced courts martial during the war, generally for being absent without leave, petty theft or drunkenness. The Casualty Form in the service record reports any misdemeanours and should indicate whether your ancestor was put on a charge. Registers of courts martial in WO 90 (for men serving overseas) and WO 92 (for men on home duty) give brief details of the offence. Crime in Gallipoli was very low because there was little opportunity for thieving or getting drunk. The most serious problem was soldiers harming themselves in an attempt to get sent to Egypt or back to Britain to recover.

  PRISONERS OF WAR

  Nearly eight thousand British men were captured by the Turks during the campaign. Conditions were undoubtedly grim in the prisoner of war camps. Many prisoners came to depend largely on Red Cross parcels, which were collected and packed by voluntary organisations under the leadership of the British Red Cross.

  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva was responsible for passing details of prisoners of war between the various combatant nations and ensuring that conditions in the camps were adequate. The Committee collected, analysed and classified information it received from the detaining powers and national agencies about prisoners of war and civilian internees. It compared this information with requests submitted to it by relatives or friends, in order to restore contact between them. The ICRC’s collections consist of some 500,000 pages of lists and six million index cards. These are now online at www.icrc.org.

  However, it is difficult to find out very much about individual POWs in British archives, as the records have largely be
en destroyed. A list of prisoners in German and Turkish hands in 1916 can be found in AIR 1/892/204/5/696-698 at Kew, which indicates where a prisoner was captured and when, where they were held and their next of kin. There is a published List of Officers taken Prisoner in the Various Theatres of War between August 1914 and November 1918 (1919, reprinted 1988), which is with Findmypast.

  If you are researching an officer, there may be a report about the circumstances of his capture by the enemy, submitted by the man to an official board of enquiry. That for Lieutenant John Still of the 6th East Yorkshire Regiment, who was taken prisoner during the shambolic attack on Takke Tape hill northeast of Anzac, reads:

  The [Bn] attacked the hill Takke Tape at dawn on 9 August 1915. There was heavy fire from front and flank. I accompanied Lt Col Moore, CO of the battalion with the leading company. About thirty of us reached the top of the hill, unsupported, and found it strongly held. We retreated down a deep, narrow, winding ravine, with the intention of joining up with the remainder of the battalion which we expected to find at the bottom of the hill, some 900 feet below and a mile away. Only five reached the foot of the hill alive, viz Lt Col Moore, Capt R D Elliott, Cpl Blanchflower, Pte Moor and myself. There we were attacked by a considerable body of Turks in between us and the plain. The Colonel told me to make signals of surrender. While doing this I was hit. The Colonel was bayonetted very shortly afterwards and the other four were taken prisoner. [WO 339/23842]