'Unique' records from the First World War give fascinating insight into the life and career of soldiers on the front line

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Ella Wills7 November 2018

A leading academic has told how a project to digitally archive “unique” records from the First World War will give fascinating insight into the life and career of soldiers on the front line.

The "Casualty Books" of the 1/1st Bucks Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (TF) reveal the individual stories of some 3,000 soldiers who served overseas between 1914 and 1918.

Professor Ian Beckett of the University of Kent, who is co-leading a project to digitise and transcribe the records, told the Standard the books are a “unique survival” for their detailed account of life in a battalion.

The books chart an individual’s time in the battalion, including leave and training, wounds and illnesses, transfers, and disciplinary record.

Captain Martin Bowen, from Stoke Poges, joined the battalion in 1916. He was awarded a Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty
Stewkley Local History Society

In cases where individuals were killed, there is often also a map reference for the original grave or location of the body, including for many of those whose body was subsequently not recovered.

The Bucks Battalion served on the Western Front from May 1915 to November 1917, and in Italy from November 1917 to February 1918.

Captain Martin Bowen's record

The professor said the project, in partnership with the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury, is significant as a huge number of men’s personnel files were destroyed during the Blitz - making it difficult to find information about certain individuals.

More than nine million men and women are estimated to have served in the British armed forces during the First World War.

Captain Martin Bowen  

1/1st Bucks Battalion  

Born Stoke Poges, Bucks and educated at Stoke House (Parry’s Prep School) and Rossall School. 

Commissioned and joined 1/1st Battalion, August 20, 1916 as Second Lieutenant, with promotion to Lieutenant January, 11 1916. 

[Battalion history says he first served with 48th Division Cyclists and was wounded 23 August 1916 before re-joining 10 September 1916. Casualty Book only starts entry for him in March 1917.] 

Posted as Assistant Town Major at Peronne, March 28, 1917

Promoted Acting Captain whilst commanding company, March 27, 1917

Promoted Captain June 16, 1917 with precedence backdated to 1 June 1916

Awarded Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty (at Tombois Farm). 

He led his Company in the most gallant manner and in spite of very difficult conditions succeeded in gaining his objective. He set a fine example to his men

Wounded October 2, 1917 with gunshot wound to spine and admitted to No 4 Casualty Clearing Station.

Died of wounds, October 9, 1917.  Buried Wimereux Communal Cemetery. Aged 21.

Many of the surviving service records from this period can be found in The National Archives, and can be used for tracing an ancestor who fought in the Great War.

But more than half their service records were destroyed in September 1940.

"These casualty books are a unique survival," Professor Beckett said.

The casualty books include crucial details such as when someone arrived in the unit, when they were ill or wounded, if they went on leave, if they were attached to another unit and when they were killed.

Bugler Bertram Mead, an agricultural labourer who was posted to 1/1st Bucks Battalion in 1917. He was killed on August 16, 1917
Stewkley Local History Society

And the professor said the information has offered researchers key information to back up historical assumptions about subjects including illness, discipline and training during WWI.

He said: "We suspected many things about the First World War but nobody has been able to put any statistics to these assumptions.

"Although it's one battalion it's a way of verifying these."

Notably the records document a large amount of disease and illness within the battalion - allowing historians to pinpoint cases of ‘trench foot’, sexually transmitted diseases, or the onset of influenza in 1918-19.

Private Stanley Stonehill. Born in Waddesdon, Bucks, Stonehill enlisted in August 1914 and posted overseas with the battalion in March 1915 (Bucks Military Museum Trust )
Bucks Military Museum Trust

"One thing we know is that people were wounded but what's interesting is the amount of illness,” said Professor Beckett.

"If you look at any particular month some would be killed, some wounded or some would return home, but what’s extraordinary is just how much illness there was."

He added that the records show the soldiers suffered from illnesses ranging from scabies, impetigo, abscesses, ulcers and venereal diseases to problems with their mental health.

The battalion was also badly affected by the flu in June 1918, coinciding with a major Austria Hungary attack in Italy.

Private Stanley Stonehill  

1/1st Bucks Battalion  

Born Waddesdon, Bucks, 1893. Father agricultural labourer. 

Mother schoolmistress at public elementary school. Employed as labourer on the Rothschild Waddesdon Estate.

Enlisted in August 1914 and posted overseas with the battalion in March 1915.

Attached for ammunition duty, 9 April 1916

Rejoined battalion, 17 June 1916

Wounded at Pozières, 21 July 1916. Recorded as shrapnel wound to neck at 1/3rd South Midland Field Ambulance that day but then recorded as gunshot wound to the neck at 1/1st South Midland Casualty Clearing Station, 22 July and also at No 8 General Hospital at Rouen, 23 July 1916.

Arrived back 55 Infantry Base Depot at Rouen, 27 July but then posted to 2/1st Bucks Battalion, 6 August 1916.

Granted 1st Class Proficiency Pay, 31 August 1916.

That concludes his records in the 1/1st Bucks Battalion. 

However, Stanley Stonehill was killed with 2/1st Bucks Battalion at Ypres, 22 August 1917 aged 23. 

He is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing.

The database also reveals how a large number of men left the battalion to undertake training courses.

Professor Beckett said this "reinforces the idea [among historians that] not everyone is on the front line" during the war.

Men were sent on courses ranging from pigeon handling (one of the main ways of communicating in the trenches), to cooking or machine gun training.

Soldiers were also sent on attachments, in sanitation or laundry, for example.

Arthur Chappell, Sidney Keen and Henry Green (L-R), all from Stewkley, Bucks. The group enlisted in November 1914 and arrived in France with the battalion on March 30, 1915
Stewkley Local History Society

"There was a constant change of personnel," the professor said.

And Professor Beckett said he was struck by how many men returned to the battalion after injury.

"You can look at any one month and there's this big turnover," he said.

But he added that the records show how the battalion greatly changed composition with the influx of drafts from other units after heavy casualties in 1916 and 1917.

He said that this affected discipline among the ranks.

Professor Beckett said: "There were lots of casualties in Passchendaele and then you had this big draft.

"What's interesting about that is the discipline."

He said there was a change in behaviour evident in the autumn of 1917, leading to more soldiers getting drunk and talking back. And there were many repeat offenders.

Professor Beckett said these entries allow historians to better understand the type of disciplinary offences and the sentences that were imposed in the war.

Interestingly soldiers were "not quite getting the length of punishment we had been expecting in the war", he added.

Aside from the academic value of the casualty records, the professor said they hold "tremendous personal value" to any individual looking for a particular person in the battalion.

"Normally we are grasping for details," he said. "But if that individual served in the Bucks battalion you have got all this information - full details of their age, how many children, all this information which is not really available about someone else.”

The digital records and transcriptions will be available on the Buckinghamshire Great War website from next year.

The team working to transcribe the abbreviated documents into a readable format has completed two out of four books, while the images are ready to go on to the website.

The public will then be able to use the database for analysis.

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