Transfers

[isanders]

I'm researching my grandfather who started out in the 2nd Battalion Ox and Bucks part of 5th Bridade 2nd Div and ended up in the Royal Engineers.

Was this common for men to be moved from their original units?

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

It often happened when someone had been wounded and on recovery was given a lower medical category which meant that they were not necessarily medically fit for service in the trenches. In other instances for eg members of Infantry Labour Companies were transferred to the Labour Corps upon its formation. Here it will look from the medal index card as if someone has gone from the Infantry to the Labour Corps.

A lot of the early members fo the Machine Gun Corps were made up of troops who had got a blighty wound and instead of being sent back to France were setn to Grantham instead (Phil - Whcih was worse? )

Ian

[isanders]

Intersting, although it looks like he was fit for active service as he won the DCM and MM while in the RE.

[Guest lesley]

Ian,

it was not uncommon for men to be moved about. Many of my Ox & Bucks men served in three different regiments. Often a number of men in the same battalion were moved en masse to a different regiment.Presumably they were sent where there was the greatest need for men.

Another possibility is that a soldier had a particular skill which resulted in a transfer. This might be the case for James.

Lesley

[Terry_Reeves]

Ian and Lesley have pointed out two of the reasons for transfer. However many thousands of men were transferred into the RE for no other reason than man power shortages. I have found one man who served in nine different regiments and corps. each time with a different service number, before transferring to the RE in 1918.

Another example is the transfer of a thousand RA men to the RE Special Brigade in 1916. None of them had any particular skills that suited them for the task. It was simply a matter of needs must as this formation expanded.

Terry Reeves

[Muerrisch]

A soldier had no absolute right to retain his cap-badge, so to speak. Under the exigencies of war, permanent transfers were not uncommon. I have no records, other than Old Contemptibles from their medal roll, of postings OUT from 2RWF, but the IMPORTS are 188 in 1441 names of Other Ranks for whom I have detailed information. This is not a random sample: taken from SDIGW and known survivors, but it gives an idea of size of import/export and is a big value. I can, if you like, do number crunching for the 1914 star men, where we know all about exports and nothing about imports.