With great respect, garstonite, your 'possible explanation' really just serves to confuse. What on earth has all that got to do with Walter Welfare?
As others have established, much about Walter Welfare's life has been established: his birth, marriage, children and his date of death. The part which the OP seems to be most interested in is his military service. Unfortunately although there are records which are online (FindMyPast, CWGC India Office Records (IOR) at BL) some of these are confusing. To take one example, the IOR entry (IOR/L/MIL/14/17683) is quoted as saying that he was commissioned on 6 Feb 1923. This is either a mistranscription or it refers to some other type of commission. I suspect this may have been his enlistment date. The other error in the IOR entry is that it says he was attached to the Indian Armoured Corps C. This should read Indian Army Corps of Clerks.
From Casualty Report No.1895 (as at 27 Oct 1945) in WO 417/98 in which his death was reported, it is noted that he was attached to IACC HQ Lushai Bde and his death was due to accident. His full Army number was S/3381199 - the S signifying that he was in the Supply branch of the Royal Army Service Corps rather than the clerical branch where the prefix would have been SS. However he could have changed trade during his Army career.
It is clear to me that he first joined the Army in the Devonshire Regiment. This could have been around 1920 or 1921 when he was about 18. He then transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps at some point and would have been trained in his chosen trade. There is no indication of when he was first attached to the Indian Army, but I suggest this could have been around 1940 when it became clear to the War Office that there was an urgent need to expand the Indian Army in order to confront the Japanese threat to India. This would have required an influx of experienced British officers and soliders to assist in training and running the larger Indian Army.
Walter would have been in the Army for around 18 years in 1940 so he was probably already at least a Warrant Officer class 2. Exactly what area his skills were in is unclear from the records we have so far; he might possibly have been a senior supply specialist or a superintending clerk. Either of these specialisations would have made him eligible to be appointed as a
Conductor*, which is just a senior Warrant Officer Class1 not holding a Regimental Sergeant Major post. It would appear from the Casualty Report that he was serving on the staff of the HQ of the Lushai Bde. His award of the MBE in 1943 indicates that he was already a Warrant Officer at that stage because soldiers below that rank are normally awarded the BEM, not MBE.
I don't think anyone has mentioned that the whole picture will become infinitely clearer if the OP applies for his grandfather's service record from the MOD (details on how to do this here:
https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-service-records )
* more on conductors
here. Walter Welfare is included in their Roll of Honour.
