please empty your brain below
Thank you.

Alan Slater, oap.ski | 10.11.18 - 7:30 a.m. | #

Grandfather Edward was a tailor by profession. Family story was that he was in the RAFC so that he could help mend the material-covered planes.

DGD | 10.11.18 - 9:25 a.m. | #

You are fortunate to have the information you do. WW1 service record research is significantly hampered in that "Unfortunately, more than half of their service records were destroyed in September 1940, when a German bombing raid struck the War Office repository in Arnside Street, London."

Still trying to piece together my grandparents service.

Richard | 10.11.18 - 9:45 a.m. | #

Like most, my family has losses from WW1 (cousins, brothers, nephews etc).

My Great grandfather was the second eldest of 16 children and had 8 living brothers (2 had died as children) and 5 sisters.
All but 2 of them enlisted in the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry (in 1918 they were aged 18-41) and amazingly they all survived.
I have a treasured photo of all 6 taken together in their uniforms!

Cornish Cockney | 10.11.18 - 10:41 a.m. | #

I don't seem to have had any relatives who were on active service in either world war - or at least, no family stories have ever been passed on.

However, I wouldn't be so sure that your great-grandmothers merely stayed at home: many worked in war-related industries, or replaced men who had gone off to the front. There's a fascinating book by Kate Adie detailing much of womens' contribution in this period: "Fighting on the Home Front : the legacy of women in World War One".

Shieldsman | 10.11.18 - 11:03 a.m. | #

Richard (above) has mentioned the National Archives, which have very comprehensive records of WW2, which have been very useful in filling in the gaps in the story told in the (highly censored) letters home of one of our family members who served in in Suffolk, North Africa and Italy.

It was my grandparents' generation that fought in WW1. and one of my grandmothers was a war widow. After the war, she married my grandfather who, as a widower with young children, had been exempt from war service. All five of his brothers survived WW1 as well.

The other grandfather served in the Royal Ordnance. Although he had a degree in engineering, having earned his university place on a scholarship, he never made it beyond NCO - you couldn't make the son of a domestic servant an officer, don't y'know. However, he married an officer's daughter, whom he had met when they were both working at the Royal Arsenal after the war. WW1 had claimed two of her three brothers (the third had been too young to join up).

| 10.11.18 - 5:06 p.m. | #

You have motivated me to find out more about my grandfather's brother, who was sadly killed on the Somme. I have, today, documented his story and circulated it to my brothers and sons.

So well done, another life is now recorded and recognised beyond simply being a service number and gravestone in a foreign field.

Petras409 | 10.11.18 - 6:14 p.m. | #

The only thing I ever heard about his time in WW1 from my Grandad was that he couldn't swim until the Somme. The only escape was a canal and when he told the sergeant he couldn't swim,the reply was " now's the time to ******* well learn.
May they all rest in peace.

Jo W | 10.11.18 - 8:50 p.m. | #

Grandad Bill was injured by shell fire on Day One of the Somme. He seemingly was in a shell hole/crater for a couple of days in some form delirium. He doesn't know how, but when he woke up he was in a field hospital outside Maidstone. He walked with a walking stick from then on. I have his medals.
I always remember dad commenting once, "There were an awful lot of young men with walking sticks when I was growing up."
Grandad John joined up and ended up guarding an ammunition dump outside Bradford. It was only when he was dying he told me how ashamed he was that many of his mates died. He felt he hadn't done his bit -- but of course he had. Someone has to guard ammo dumps. I hope I was able to change his mind. I certainly tried.
They were both wonderful men.

Chris | 10.11.18 - 10:24 p.m. | #

Fascinating stuff. WW1 was always something the older generations in my family preferred to pass by. The only eyewitness story I have been party to was my grandmother describing the scene as a Zeppelin over London was brought down, accompanied by cheering in the streets.

We have extensive family tree material but one side of the family doesn't make it back past the WW1 generation and we haven't got around to piecing it back together. My mum's grandparents were very remote figures from a dark time. Her parents didn't seem to 'look back' (not in front of her, anyway), and as a small girl 70 years ago she was petrified at night when an older relative limped up and down the stairs with his prosthetic creaking and clomping. She was recently taken aback when her newest great grandson received a very WW1 generation name, but recognises that the connotations are different now.

The Shrouds of the Somme is most impressive (and was a good reason to go in the Orbit for the first time) - recorded in the homepage link here.

NickW | Homepage | 10.11.18 - 11:04 p.m. | #

One of the topics that is rarely mentioned about WWI are the internment camps for resident Germans which existed from 1915 onwards. There were c.60K Germans in the UK at the start of WWI, most of the men got sent to camps. My great-grandfather was German; although he had taken an English name he listed himself as German-born in the 1911 census and apparently still had a German accent although he had been in England since the 1880s. He got rounded up with several other Germans in my hometown, but I've been unable to track down any documentation as most of it was destroyed in WWII. He was a pork butcher and had his own shop - his elder children and wife tried to continue the business but eventually had to sell up due to anti-German feeling.

I was brought up by my grandmother, one of his younger daughters (he had 16 children!) but she never spoke about him, I only found out this information when I started researching my family tree in 2010.

On the other side of my family my great-uncle John served in one of the lancs regiments and died of pneumonia in 1917 and is listed on a memorial in a Catholic church in my hometown - again, I didn't find out about this until recently.

Margaret | 11.11.18 - 5:26 p.m. | #

I just discovered that a great grandfather was at Ypres (unbelievable casualty statistics, as usual). Having survived that and start a family shortly after, I feel incredibly lucky to even exist.

NickW | 13.11.18 - 11:59 p.m. | #

Thanks for posting this and it's good to find just how much you've discovered. My paternal grandad was killed in action soon after his youngest son, my dad, was born on 5th January 1916. I know a few bits-and-pieces but will now search further. On a lighter note it's just as well that my grandma was 'in the mood' when grandad came home on leave! :-)

Pete A | 16.11.18 - 11:06 p.m. | #











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