WW1 POW Records

[SmallTownGirl]

If one of the Index Cards on the grandeguerre.icrc.org website has "negative envoye" on it and doesn't link to any further information, does it mean that the man wasn't actually a POW, please?

The card shows details of the soldier's name, rank, regiment, and date "missing", and then details of his father and his father's address.

I read this as being that the father made an enquiry to the Red Cross about his "missing" son, and the Red Cross couldn't find any record of him, so sent a negative response.  Is that right, do you think, please?

Thanks
STG

[macwil]

envoyé = sent
So, yes you are right, they had no record of him being a POW.
That does not necessarily mean that he wasn't one, he could have slipped through the net, records lost. etc.

[MaxD]

macwil has it exactly:

https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/Content/help/3step-E15-01.pdf

Do you have a CWGC record for his commemoration (presumably he was among the missing?)

MaxD

[SmallTownGirl]

Well, he's a bit of a puzzle.

The Red Cross card is dated 12 May 1918 and family say they received a postcard in Jun 1918 saying he was a POW and that he died as a POW in Aug 1918, and he's buried at the Rethel French National Cemetery, in the Ardennes.

His service record hasn't survived, but he's listed on the Soldiers' Effects database on Ancestry, and he wouldn't be there, if he'd died a POW, would he?

Edited to say:  Just read the Soldiers' Effects entry more closely and it says "Returned POW".

[SmallTownGirl]

So, my next questions are:

Would there be a death certificate somewhere that says how he died?  And if so, where might it be obtained from?

Thanks

[macwil]

If there is a certificate it would probably be in Overseas Deaths at GRO.
However the information it contains may be pretty vague:- i.e. Killed in Action, Died of Wounds and the place may be equally obscure, such as just the name of the country.
It all depends on who supplied the info and when.

[SmallTownGirl]

Many thanks.

Have found him on the Army War Deaths index on FindMyPast and have passed the info onto the family.

Thanks again for all your help.

STG