Military roles for volunteers

[willyam]

Hello,

I am currently looking into the service profiles of 4 great-uncles - each of whom enlisted voluntarily in 1915.

In the 1911 census, three of them (all brothers) were employed by the GWR, one as a Fireman & the other two as Platelayers - occupations that they all returned to after the war.

The fourth man (unrelated to the brothers) in the 1911 census was a Waggoner on a farm and in the 1939 Register was a Horseman on a farm.

When these men enlisted, the Fireman joined the Royal Navy as a Stoker (his ship HMS Yarmouth was involved in the Battle of Jutland); the Platelayers became Sappers with the 275th Railway Construction Company of the Royal Engineers; the Waggoner/Horseman joined the Horse Transport Company of the RASC as a Driver.

As each man was allocated a military role that directly mirrored his civilian occupation, did this happen either - because it was a pragmatic decision on the part of the Navy & Army - as he was already fully proficient and would probably need little (if any) training
or - because, as a volunteer, he was allowed to express a preference for his military role?

Willyam

[MaxD]

Men with specialist skills were in many cases, particularly in the early volunteer years, diverted to units who could make almost immediate use of their skills so it may well have been a combination of the two factors you cite with skills taking priority.  If my memory is working properly the RE (as well as others) had technical trade tests that men took at different levels so even a new recruit could show he was already at the basic level of trade training at least.

MaxD

[jim1]

There were plenty of men with these occupations that went into the Infantry or RFA.
Often men were then transferred based on their knowledge some time afterwards.
Do you have their service records which shows them going into these outfits at attestation.
I see MaxD has said sort of the same thing.

[willyam]

Thanks very much for this MaxD.

I had thought that this might be the case.

There was another ancestor (my wife's great-uncle) who was a Furnaceman both before & after the war and who also joined the Navy as a Stoker.

His naval record shows that he literally fought his way through the war but almost exclusively against his own shipmates & officers!

Willyam

[willyam]

Thank you Jim1

In the case of the Fireman his Navy record shows that he went straight to being a Stoker.

I do not have any service records for the other 3 men but their medals records do not show any reallocations of units.

Willyam

[MaxD]

The medal records only have the regiment(s) they served with overseas so not incompatible with jim1's thought, start in the Blankshires perhaps and then transferred before going overseas. 

MaxD