Graham Stewart

A sight not seen since 1968 all of the hackles being worn with No.2's and the old Fusilier Brigade cap badge, before they became Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

This is probably amalgamation day St.Georges Day 1968, as you will note the different coloured hackles being worn. Obviously seem to be the youngest lads of each regiment parading in full dress(apart from fur caps) for the occassion.

This was probably band dress rehearsal taken before the first photo. The No.2's being worn are quite different to later issue in that the material is much rougher. I have Ed's first old set in the loft.

Time for some RRF nostalgia. These were given to me by Ed Forrest formerly 1st RNF & 1st RRF and were originally on slides. Possibly taken 1967/68 after 1st RNF had returned from Aden to UK.

Hi lads - recently acquired new RRF patch 2 inches square.

TynsideIrish Only Newcastle-upon-Tyne VTC wore the City Arms and the badges of those other individual Corps which were formed outside of the City remain a mystery apart from that worn by Whitley Bay and Monkseaton. It's generally thought they adopted local Borough badges to suite or wore the VTC Proficiency badge s a cap badge or in some cases perhaps nothing at all. The Royal Arms capbadge was adopted by all units on the formation of the Volunteer Force in 1916 and VTC units were given the choice of join or disband. In July 1918 the VF began adopting the pre-1908 Volunteer titles for all units and as such were allowed to adopt regular pattern badges, but photo's do sometimes show a mixture of both.

Currently there is a similar situation regarding entitlement on a well known auction site. This involves a BWM impressed 35-1330 Pte T.Hepple, NF and while I have no doubt that the medal is genuine, it should never have been awarded and appears to be a total cock-up at official level. Only one 1330 Thomas Hepple appears in the MIC's and he is 4/1330 Pte Thomas Hepple of Throckley. The write up concludes that Hepple was possibly wounded with the 1/4th Bn and then died in training with the 21st Bn, NF at Alnwick. However none of this in my opinion is correct. (i)The 35th Bn, NF weren't formed until Jan 1917, two years after Hepples death so he didn't serve with them and all members of the 35th Bn were given the new six figure Territorial numbers in 1917. (ii)No TF personnel were attached to the Tyneside Scottish while they were under training at Alnwick, nor were any Territorials posted into the TS until the end of July 1916. Considering I, along with John Sheen wrote the book on the Tyneside Scottish this is a fact. Yet he appears in SDGW as being with the 21st Bn,NF which he wasn't. (iii)He doesn't appear in any of the 1/4th Bn casualty returns for any period in 1915, nor does he appear in any of the 1/4th's Medal Rolls. (iv)The relevant CWGC Graves Register gives no battalion only regiment and again only 1330 Pte Thomas Hepple. (v)My conclusion is that 4/1330 Pte Thomas Hepple never actually served overseas and did infact die at home whilst serving with the 21st Provisional Bn, NF. This was a battalion made up of home service personnel from both the 4th & 7th Bns, NF, which eventually went onto form the 35th B, NF in 1917. The 21st Prov Bn, NF is often mistaken for it TS equivalent and you do have to look carefully when checking soldiers details from sources. Therefore I conclude he should only have ever received a Silver War Badge and not a BWM. I'm not doing this to debase either the seller or medal, as I think there has been genuine errors made here, which have concluded in an unentitled award. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BWM-medal-Northumber...86.c0.m14.l1318

If my Roman numerals are correct then he served with 228 Battery/LXXII Bde, R.F.A., which served with 15th(Scottish)Division, which was a New Army Division. A resume' of it's formation and battles are here;- http://www.1914-1918.net/15div.htm

Leigh, The unit he's finally discharged from is actually 'Y'/42 Medium Trench Mortar Battery and not 7/42 T.M.B.. If I remember correctly the M.T.M. Batteries were lettered, not numbered and these medium mortars were manned by men of the Royal Field Artllery . In this case 'Y'/42 M.T.M.B. belong to the 42nd(East Lancashire)Division, which was a first line Territorial Division. The other two batteries were 'X'/42 & 'Z'/42. The Light Trench Mortar Batteries of a Division were manned entirely by the infantry and numbered after the Brigade that they served.

Spionkop, Your Grandfathers service records will still exist and if you contact the MOD at the following link they will provide copies for you. Sadly it isn't free and you do have to prove you're a blood relative before they do the search and it can take sometime. Worth giving it a try though, as unlike WWI service records they seem to remain intact. http://www2.army.mod.uk/contacts/divisions/records.htm

Hugh, The links we've provided to the National Archive show what was transcribed from the original cards for the NA MIC website and the original MIC's are now in the hands of the Western Front Association. The NA still holds the microfiche copies of the cards and it's those which require a fee. The MIC's are only the beginning, as thats all they were intended to be 'index cards'. Both the originals and microfiched copies contain further information which direct you to the relevent 'Medal Roll Book' and 'Silver War Badge Rolls'. Neither of these two sources are available online and require personal viewing or a researcher to obtain copies. Mike, Thanks for finding Friedrichsen's MIC, I got the spelling wrong. It is interesting to note the he's actually gained his War Medals with the 1st City of London Regt(Royal Fusiliers) and not the 16th County of London Regt, with whom he gets the TEM. He is also renumbered in 1917.

Nice Docs. Referring to Para 6 and the Officers "will wear camouflage and webbing", I think in reality it probably means wearing O/R's SD tunics with webbing and carring rifles, which became a common practice as the War progressed to overcome the losses in officers .

Freidrichsen doesn't appear to have a MIC no matter what combination I put in and wonder if it was changed at all to remove the German sounding??

Out of curiosity Charles Niblocks MIC, which shows he too was an RGA Territorial and renumbered in 1917 also. At sometime he was transfrred to the Royal Engineers, but MIC's are terrible for not getting units in the correct order so would view this listing with caution;- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documen...p;resultcount=2

The Medal Index Card link to 194 Driver James Niblock, who appears to a Territorial hence the second six figure number issued in 1917. His brother(?) Charles may have also served in the same battery, as there are only two Niblocks to be found;- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documen...p;resultcount=2

The Medal Index Card link to 10439 Cpl Frank Brown;- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documen...p;resultcount=6

Here's the link for your Great War medals, and as you will know the name, rank, number and unit are on the medals themselves. Have fun, but it can become adictive;- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documen...amp;queryType=1

With the Medal Index Cards and Service Records now available for the Great War, it would be nice to see those WWI medals researched. I'm ex-Fleet Arm Arm, Royal Navy and then had 14years in the Territorial Army(your National Guard) and enjoyed both. Family was always Army orientated with the old man in the Grenadiers and brother a 'five mile sniper'(R.A.).

Royal Artillery - collar badge, with a worn ball, which has erroded the pattern.

Collar badge - Royal Engineers with the additional flames on the grenade.

Very nice collection. Have you done any research to the named medals? The grenade may actually be Royal Engineers, who used a plain ball to the grenade and I believe also had extra flames. I'll see if I can find an illustration of the two different patterns.

He's a link to the Army Records Office;- http://www2.army.mod.uk/contacts/divisions/records.htm

Ron, Don't know if this will be of any use to you, but your fathers service records may still be in existence and held by the Army Records Dept which used to be at Hayes in Middlesex. However I seem to remember that all records which were post WWI or WWII related were being moved to the National Archive at Kew, but am unsure if this was ever carried out. MOD also have a website(or did) which had a contact e.mail address for records, but I belive you now have to pay and have positive proof that you are a blood relative. For your grandfather that may be a bit more difficult, as anyone who served in the Army pre-WWI, who was called back to serve saw their records being carried over. Sadly a large proportion of these records were destroyed during the Blitz. Those that did survive were copied onto microfiche and some are now available on Ancestry.com, but you have to pay to use that service. I also believe that those that served on the NW Frontier, who have gained an Indian GSM, with clasp/s will appear in the relevant campaign Roll Book, again probably located at Kew, and I'll ask some of my mates what the format will be as I've only ever used Medal Roll Books for the Great War. What was grandads Christian name?

Have you tried the Great War Forum? A lot of it's members are map collectors and I know at least one of them has created a trench mapping device for France & Flanders and also many of them follow the campaign in Italy. If I remember correctly Trench Maps bare no resemblence to the Ordnance Survey Maps we're familiar with and use a different map reading technique.

Just flicking through here and noticed this post on the RWF. All of it's Battalions and their lineage, including WWII can be traced throught the book 'Lineage Book of the British Land Forces" by J.B.M.Fredericks, which is the bible for such things and is a massive two volume work, one volume alone being dedicated to the Artillery. Also regimental numbers as a whole and case studies regarding both the Northumberland and Royal Welsh Fusiliers are being dealt with in a future publication, although I'm not sure when and as far as I'm aware the earlier WWI RWF numbers can be linked to Kitchener units. Also there was no such 'Army Order 2414'. Howard Williamson got this totally wrong and it was infact 'Army Council Instruction 2414 of December 1916'. To this ACI was added an Appendix listing all of the new regimental numbers assigned to the Territorial Force as of 1917. Army Coucil Instructions are the higher authority and much more detailed than Army Orders and throughout ACI's are many detailed instructions on Regimental numbering, this inlcudes one issued on the 18th May 1915 which introduced prefixing of regimental numbers to cease confusion in Rolls and Casualty returns, but it would appear not all units took prefixing into practice. The Regular army and Special Reserve followed one practice of numbering while the Territorial Force had their own unique numbering system all of which were dealt with under Kings Regulations 1912, Regulations for the Special Reserve and Territorial Force Regulations 1912.