Form B103 WW1 Assistance

[Tom 23]

Hi

Please could anyone assist with confirming that I have interpreted my great grandfathers B103 Casualty Form Active Service correctly and possibly kindly add anything? - This is what I have so far in order of the lines on the attachment:-

Admitted Fever
Admitted Malaria
Returned to Unit
Gunshot Wound (Abv.) Chest?
Rejoined Btn?
illegible
illegible
illegible
Lice? to WR.I.T.R.D

Thank you!

[MaxD]

The one starting with a G is Gtd - granted which usually goes with leave or an allowance

The last one is Disc to No 1 TRD (Training Reserve depot probably)- Discharged which usually denotes discharge either from hospital back to a unit or the service.

Service records are often easier to interpret if the whole thing is shown, documents overlap with one another and what is difficult on  one sheet can sometimes be clarified by a more legible entry.  Knowing the service and unit helps also to identify places and units.

If the record is on line, would you like to give name and number so we can see it all?  If not can you post all of it?

MaxD

[Tom 23]

Thank you very much Max - its Pte Thomas McCall Cameron Highlanders 22679.

His full record is fortunately available. 

[MaxD]

OK I'll check it out.

MaxD

[MaxD]

The first line comes after the last line on the next sheet and is him rejoining (his unit presumably) from a medical outfit.  The lines above have 83 Field Ambulance and there are entries for a General Hospital and Casualty Clearing Station all in Salonika where more men were sick apparently from malaria and such diseases than killed/wounded.

Even with the full record, the faint parts are unreadable in detail I'm afraid.  Of interest is him ending up in  Tiflis (now Tbilisi Georgia))and Chanak in Turkey.  The war diary would be interesting but it is not digitised.

Sorry I can't improve on the above.

MaxD

[Tom 23]

Not at all, what you have been able to add is immensely useful - thank you very much for your time.

[MaxD]

A couple of extra snippets.  There are four convalescent depot (CD) entries, No 1 CD in Dec 1917 going to it and being discharged from it and the same for No 6 CD in 1918, both these were in the Salonika theatre.  This is of a piece with being in hospital which is often followed by convalescence.

MaxD

[Tom 23]

Thanks again MaxD 

I have typed the record up in word, with the details I could read (some I got horribly wrong!) and with your new and correct info, I have also expanded abbreviations in some places to make it abit clearer to make sense of.

I have added down the side the line number, at your convenience and if ok with you, please could you check this looks as complete/correct as possible now, I appreciate the original form is completely impossible to read in some places, so won't complete it fully.

Cheers
Tom

[MaxD]

The 7 Berks entry should read "attached", the process whereby a man remains in his own regiment but is "on loan" to another.

The port for which he embarked on the way to Tbilisi was Batoum (now Batumi) a main port of Georgia on the Black Sea.. 

Just for interest, in looking for clues  in the war diary of 7 Bn Royal Berkshire which can be seen here:
https://www.thewardrobe.org.uk/research/war-diaries/search?regiment=7&day=12&month=5&%24year=1919
I find the entry for 12 May 1919 says "Took over guards from 2nd Cameron Highlanders" (meaning took over guard duties probably) so the two regiments were working in much the same area.
It would seem therefore that he transferred at that time and his history from then until leaving Turkey to come home is with 7 Berks.  Their diary can be interrogated at the link above.  The diary fro 2 Cameron Highlanders can't be looked at in the sam way unfortunately.  There is no published history of the 27th Division which both battalions belonged to.  Accounts of the operations in Georgia which came after the main campaign in Salonika are rarer than hen's teeth , page 60 of this paper refers to the arrival of General Forestier Walker's division which is the one the two battalions belonged to.
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/26041/thebriti.pdf

MaxD