Thanks Chris and Alan for that information.
Re any other military cards - unfortunately, I have only this one for him whilst he was in a war zone. He was wounded in Mar/April 1918 (he appears on the WO Cas List of 21 May 18) and there are cards from him from a couple of hospitals in England to Mary (who was living in Glasgow) dated late April and early May that shed no light on the unit he was with. He was obviously not well enough to go back to the battlefield and the next cards we have are ones dated late September 1918 with PM S.70 (Faenza, Italy) (Censor type 8 - no. 334 (I think) and S.100 (Taranto) (Censor Type 8 - no. 882 or 382 (these are hard to decipher) and then one with PM Base Office Aden - IEF dated 7 October with what look likes a big 'P' censor stamp.
Apart from the pcards dated 20 September and 21 September from Taranto whose censor name appears to be J L Jones or J C Jones, the censor names on the others are indecipherable.
It appears likely he was on the Overland Route to the East from Cherbourg and then went to Alexandria by boat and then I'm pretty sure to Bombay on HMS Trent via Aden. He ended up in Jubbulpore, India with E Section, No. 2 Depot RFA, Hugh Rose Barracks, presumably on garrison duties. He was there until December 1919 when he returned to the UK. I would presume from this that he did not go back to his unit/s that he was with in the field prior to him being wounded.
I'm happy to enclose those if you wish Chris but I don't think they were ones that you might be looking for to assist you with honing in on what unit he was with in the field. But just let me know and I will post these up in the next message.
Alan - sorry about the surname. I should have advised that his name is registered as McNeill for his service, even though he writes McNeil. Like many of that era, I think he just didn't worry about correcting it with the authorities because it meant too much trouble. It is also spelt MacNeil and MacNeill on some of their other non-war service documents.
Unfortunately, there are no army service records for him as these were destroyed in WW2 in London. And the Artillery had that many changes throughout the war of batteries and brigades being broken up and sent to other Divisions that it's made it quite hard to reconstruct his most likely unit.
Yes that would be them on the family tree on Ancestry, but I am not sure who the person is who has created it. My father, who has just turned 100, maintains a family tree on Ancestry for his side of the family and it has information on the McNeil side as well. Roderick and Mary and their son, Donald John, left London on 6 March 1920 on the Orvieto and arrived in Melbourne on 15 April 1920. Roderick had already come to Melbourne in May 1914, presumably to have a look around and see if he wanted to settle here. He then, as an Imperial Reservist, had to return to serve and arrived back in the UK in February 1915.
I'll dig a bit deeper on the Guards Division aspect that you've raised and hopefully we'll find something tangible. Another few months or so in finishing my story on them is not much seeing as I started it about five years ago!
Thanks again for any assistance.
Peter
Re any other military cards - unfortunately, I have only this one for him whilst he was in a war zone. He was wounded in Mar/April 1918 (he appears on the WO Cas List of 21 May 18) and there are cards from him from a couple of hospitals in England to Mary (who was living in Glasgow) dated late April and early May that shed no light on the unit he was with. He was obviously not well enough to go back to the battlefield and the next cards we have are ones dated late September 1918 with PM S.70 (Faenza, Italy) (Censor type 8 - no. 334 (I think) and S.100 (Taranto) (Censor Type 8 - no. 882 or 382 (these are hard to decipher) and then one with PM Base Office Aden - IEF dated 7 October with what look likes a big 'P' censor stamp.
Apart from the pcards dated 20 September and 21 September from Taranto whose censor name appears to be J L Jones or J C Jones, the censor names on the others are indecipherable.
It appears likely he was on the Overland Route to the East from Cherbourg and then went to Alexandria by boat and then I'm pretty sure to Bombay on HMS Trent via Aden. He ended up in Jubbulpore, India with E Section, No. 2 Depot RFA, Hugh Rose Barracks, presumably on garrison duties. He was there until December 1919 when he returned to the UK. I would presume from this that he did not go back to his unit/s that he was with in the field prior to him being wounded.
I'm happy to enclose those if you wish Chris but I don't think they were ones that you might be looking for to assist you with honing in on what unit he was with in the field. But just let me know and I will post these up in the next message.
Alan - sorry about the surname. I should have advised that his name is registered as McNeill for his service, even though he writes McNeil. Like many of that era, I think he just didn't worry about correcting it with the authorities because it meant too much trouble. It is also spelt MacNeil and MacNeill on some of their other non-war service documents.
Unfortunately, there are no army service records for him as these were destroyed in WW2 in London. And the Artillery had that many changes throughout the war of batteries and brigades being broken up and sent to other Divisions that it's made it quite hard to reconstruct his most likely unit.
Yes that would be them on the family tree on Ancestry, but I am not sure who the person is who has created it. My father, who has just turned 100, maintains a family tree on Ancestry for his side of the family and it has information on the McNeil side as well. Roderick and Mary and their son, Donald John, left London on 6 March 1920 on the Orvieto and arrived in Melbourne on 15 April 1920. Roderick had already come to Melbourne in May 1914, presumably to have a look around and see if he wanted to settle here. He then, as an Imperial Reservist, had to return to serve and arrived back in the UK in February 1915.
I'll dig a bit deeper on the Guards Division aspect that you've raised and hopefully we'll find something tangible. Another few months or so in finishing my story on them is not much seeing as I started it about five years ago!
Thanks again for any assistance.
Peter