Tony

Thanks Dan.

Ok, I did a quick search and found him as a temporary Captain in the Home Guard (assuming hg is the Army List abbreviation for Home Guard) in 1942. I didn't find him in the casualty lists. Attached is a page from the army list, he's in the first column, 10th from the bottom. I've no idea what the crossed swords or W.S./Lt. mean. I also found him in the Grantham Journal 18/7/41 - Grantham v Egerton Park, WG Butteriss bowled out by Hill for 53. At his father's funeral in April 42 he's a Major according to newspaper above. S2_US_MCV_ARMY_ARMYLISTOCTPART121943GREA_0669.pdf

A day later and my brain has finally clicked into gear 🙄. I see what you mean Pete with the Dunkirk connection, served overseas early and didn't go back afterwards.

That's interesting, I thought they were awarded for service any time between 1939 and 1945 (the Star being for overseas service). Cazack, a cracking group and hopefully the missing medals will turn up one day.

Andy, thanks for taking the time to check. Do you think there's any chance of this being the same man? Not that anything can be proven. I've just been looking at the German Adressbueche and the family name seems to crop up mainly on the North Sea coast area and Ruhr/Rheinland. Anyway, WWI gas mask glasses don't crop up often, so a nice and possibly rare item to have especially as the tin is named.

I dug these out again the other day and am just wondering if any other online research possibilities have become available over the past couple of years.

Peter, I don’t really know the ins and outs but in basic terms and only up to 1920 each regiment issued their own number, if a soldier changed to a different regiment he received a number that belonged to his new regiment. See here https://www.rlcarchive.org/Help/Enlistment Post 1920 block numbers https://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/mm/army_service_numbers.htm

Hello, Your great grandfather's service record doesn't appear to have survived the fire bombs in WWII. Attached is his medal index card which shows he received the British War and Victory medals. Only receiving a medal pair indicates he didn't go overseas until Jan. 1916 at the very earliest. Therefore if he was at Mons it would have been in Nov. 1918. W/R is Waterways and Railways. https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-corps-of-royal-engineers-in-the-first-world-war/ I think as his medal box shows RAMC he first entered theatre in that Corps and transferred to the RE at a later date. I don't subscribe to Ancestry so can't check pension records.

Peron, John Norton transferred from the Royal Artillery to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry on 12/1/44. Going by the medals he then obviously served with the W. Yorks. That's the only info I could find online at Find My Past.

Always good to have a reunite, good luck finding the other two.

Can you do a panorama shot of the room when entering?

They could be serviette/napkin rings however, as with most things that are a mystery, it's just a guess based on seeing similar WWI items. I would think that unless a book or newspaper ad from 1918 turns up showing what they were actually made for you'll probably never get a 100% satisfactory reply to the answers you're looking for.

Looks like he was sick in 1916. Here's a list of the casualty clearing stations to give you an idea of the area he may have been serving in. https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/locations-of-british-casualty-clearing-stations/

Shame on you for getting so old. 😦 😉

Difficult to know if he wasn't a casualty (wounded/killed/POW). This site http://www.corpsofmilitarypolice.org/tools/armynumber?query= shows the service number 14416131 as being General Service. The number 29526 L brings up an error page but that may just be a problem at my end however, the service number 29526 shows a result for Royal Army Service Corps. Here's another link showing army block numbers allocated from 1920 to 1942 http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/mm/army_service_numbers.htm Hopefully the above helps a little.