A WW1 Private described "General Labourer" by wife - Is that... a thing?

[Annbee]

He could have been anywhere along the yellow line.
Enjoy your hour with your pumpkin.

Pumpkin hour was so good I extended it for 8 hours, Jim. And thanks for taking the time to find the maps, and draw the yellow lines. I found where you sourced, I like to record/quote sources.

Which brings me to the question of is there a nameable source for where you found the person + their death location? Or can you let me know privately if you prefer that.

And if you are able to do look ups for this information is it too much to ask for another? I will understand if you can't do this - it's getting way off the original topic!.

The man is Thomas Richard Beach's cousin: Alec Beach, No. 624941, Bomardier, Honourable Artillery Company; killed in action 4/10/1917. He was 22 years old. He was admitted to the HAC in 2015, to unit "H.A. B2". I believe he was killed in Flanders and he is buried in the New Irish Farm Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. He was born in London and was involved in the fledgling film industry before he enlisted.

There must be another relative who cares about him because someone posted this photo of him on findagrave.

[jim1]

The info about the location came from the war diary which
is held by Ancestry & also The National Archive.
For Ancestry you need a sub but TNA is free to download.
I'll take a look at your other man.

[Annbee]

Goodness, I take that back, don't spend time looking for me, Jim. I didn't realise Ancestry HAD war diaries, and I currently have a sub so I can go searching.

I didn't know you'd searched war diaries  so thank you once more for giving me your time. I am hugely appreciative

I have in the past tried searching National Archive, but I never had much luck finding the 2/8th (and am generally inept with military terminology, but improving).

I hope you see this before you go hunting. I can take a look tomorrow.

[jim1]

I'll have to start by telling you that the Royal Artillery in it's
various forms was a complex entity.
In May 1916 re-structuring began & pretty much continued to be
until the end of the war.
The Great War Forum says this which will give you a taste of the difficulties
concerning the RA:
126th Army Brigade, RFA went out to the Western Front on 21 June 1917 with 2/A HAC, 2/B HAC, and 2/1 Warwickshire RHA with personnel only. On arrival in France the personnel of these units were attached to the following Divisional Artilleries in rotation as follows: 39th Division on 25 June 1917, 48th Division on 4 August 1917, 58th Division on 3 September 1917, 48th Division on 28 September 1917, 9th Division on 11 October 1917, 58th Division on 28 October 1917, 18th Division on 1 December 1917 and 14th Division on 16 December 1917. From 6 January 1918 to 3 February1918 the Brigade was at Calais, and during that period were being equipped with guns, horses and equipment. From 10 February 1918 to the end of the war the Brigade now equipped with guns served with various divisions in France.
Mind boggling isn't it.
One snippet I can give you is that his War Gratuity indicates he joined around July 1915.
I know your going to ask me how I know this so, War Gratuity was calculated at £5 for
the first year + 10s. for every month thereafter up to time of death.
His NOK received £13.

[Annbee]

I think the army must have been doing this rotation to confuse the enemy and anyone with a pulse - and it's a tactic which still works!

So I'm thinking maybe start looking at the 48th's activities in late Sep - early Oct.

I am getting the impression that the H.A.C. were a smallish team compared to other regiments. I read a list of regiment's death totals, and, say, while one had 40,000 losses, H.A.C had 1,000. My grandfather was Veterinary and his regiment's losses were low hundreds. (My father was advised enlist quick and choose least dangerous role).

I'll see how I go tomorrow then. Thanks for the pointer.

[Andy J2022]

There's a little information about 2/B Battery HAC on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Battery,_Honourable_Artillery_Company#2/B_Battery,_HAC. It mainly talks about the unit while it was in the UK. The HAC was a Territorial Force unit, and in order for it to be deployed overseas all the men would have needed to sign a document entitled Imperial and General Service Obligation to agree to be sent overseas. In reality they didn't have much choice. If they had refused to sign they would probably have been dismissed from the TF and then conscripted into the Army anyway.
As you can see from the Wiki article 2/B Bty became part of CXXVI brigade. This was an artillery Brigade made up to 3 Batteries so roughly equivalent to an infantry Regiment in size. The Brigade moved to France in June 1917 and this accords with the dates on Bombardier Beach's HAC index card.More on CXXVI Brigade can be found on the Long, Long Trail website here:
https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-royal-artillery-in-the-first-world-war/batteries-and-brigades-of-the-royal-field-artillery/cxxiii-cxxiv-cxxv-cxxvi-howitzer-brigades-37th-divisional-artillery/
There is some mismatch of information however. The Wiki article, which is based on the book by Major AF Becke, entitled Order of Battle of Divisions Part 2A. The Territorial Force Mounted Divisions and the 1st-Line Territorial Force Divisions (42–56). 1936 London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. ISBN 1-871167-12-4,  says the Battery were equipped with 18 pounders, whereas Chris Baker (author of the Long, Long Trail) says they were equipped with Howitzers, a different kind of gun.

As you are probably aware from reading the details about him of the CWGC website, his body was initially unidentifiable and was later identified because of a small ring he was wearing. This suggests that he was killed by something like an exploding shell rather than shot with a bullet. This would be due to what was known as counter-battery fire, where the enemy located the position of the British guns and then bombarded them to put them out of action. If you get hold of the Battery's war diary this will record the exact incident in which Bombardier Beach was killed. There's a note on one of the CWGC documents which says '25 Bde'. I can find no information about this reference.

[jim1]

In addition to the above 126 Bde. was part of the 37th. Div. as their Div'l. Artillery.
126 Bde. was broken up in Jan. 1917 so their war diary only goes up to that date.
After that they became an Army Bde.
The GWF says this:
Army Artillery Brigades which formed a reserve which could be moved to reinforce
sectors of the front as required, without breaking up the divisional structure.
According to the above info on 4/10/17 126 Bde. was attached to the 48th. Div.
There wasn't much use for RHA Brigades & many like the 126th. became RFA.
126th. was an Howitzer Brigade.

[Andy J2022]

One snippet I can give you is that his War Gratuity indicates he joined around July 1915.
I know your going to ask me how I know this so, War Gratuity was calculated at £5 for
the first year + 10s. for every month thereafter up to time of death.
His NOK received £13.

His HAC record card (available on FindMyPast) says he enlisted 15 Feb 1915. It doesn't say if this his attestation date, or the date he was embodied.

[Andy J2022]

AnnBee,

You make the point about the comparatively low casualty figures for the HAC. In fact, despite the size of the Royal Artillery, they suffered far fewer deaths proportionately than the Infantry. This is because in general the RA were deployed a kilometer or more behind the front line and were mainly only vulnerable to artillery fire and the occasional bomb dropped from the air. They were out of range* of the deadly machine guns which were responsible for so many deaths in the Infantry.  The counter battery fire I mentioned earlier was pretty inaccurate so unless a large number of enemy guns were aimed at a battery, casualties tended to be low as the gun numbers (the artillery men manning each gun) could get under cover if this was available.

* This not strictly true. A bullet from a machine gun could travel up to about a mile, but they couldn't be accurately fired at these ranges and in any case the machine gunners probably couldn't see the enemy's artillery to fire on them in the first place.  Modern machine guns can be used in this way, which is known as indirect fire, although again not with great precision.