Re records of 1st World War servicemen (and women) - I understand the building in which the records were kept was bombed in 2nd WW, and a lot of the records were destroyed. It's not that records were not kept, I think they were comprehensive, like Australian records, but were sadly wiped out in the Blitz. Anna Ward.
Anna F. Ward, 2 Hadlow Drive, Wantirna, Victoria 3152. Ph. 0403 309 830. On Mon, 5 May 2025 at 20:08, barry woolner via CoTyroneList < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi Elwyn, > > They did give her the pension until they discovered he was alive. > I agree this is logical. I wasn't complaining that she was out of pocket. > I just thought that, given all these people assumed he was dead when he > wasn't, it must have been quite a shock. > I was also amazed that many thousands of soldiers were POW's and nobody > knew they were there. > From the National Archive- > "An estimated 192,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen were taken > captive during the First World War. There is no comprehensive list covering > all of these PoWs, and the surviving documents cover only a fraction of > those who were captured. > There is a published *List of British Officers taken prisoner in the > various theatres of war between August 1914 and November 1918 > <https://tna.koha-ptfs.co.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=29993>*. > The > list covers officers of the British Army, Royal Air Force, the Royal Naval > Air Service and the Royal Naval Division. As well as names and rank, the > book provides the date the officer went missing, where and when he was > imprisoned and the date of his repatriation or death if the officer died > while prisoner. > There is very little information anywhere on PoWs who were liberated after > the Armistice on 11 November 1918. > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Elwyn Soutter via CoTyroneList < > [email protected]> > *Sent:* 05 May 2025 16:15 > *To:* barry woolner via CoTyroneList < > [email protected]> > *Cc:* Elwyn Soutter <[email protected]> > *Subject:* [CoTyroneMailingList] Re: whoops > > Barry, > > Forgive me if I have misunderstood this but, if I have got it right, your > ancestor was thought to have died and so the War Office paid his widow a > pension. Later it emerged that he was still alive and so they stopped it. > Is that right? That seems pretty reasonable and logical to me. They would > have replaced it with his missing pay as a soldier, for the period they > thought he was dead. So she wouldn’t have been out of pocket. In fact she’d > have been better off. > > > Elwyn > > > On Monday 5 May 2025 at 03:30:07 BST, barry woolner via CoTyroneList < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > I was looking through one of the updates and noticed this entry. > In days past, with poor communication channels, how often has something > like this occurred? > Was he amused? > My great-grandmother received a widow's pension when her husband died in > WWI. > I have a copy of the pension record card with a "cancelled" stamp across > it. My great-grandfather had been a POW and returned at the end of the war. > We can't imagine this would happen now. I gather only the officers were > recorded as POW's, and their families knew they were okay. There are no > records of ordinary soldiers. Given my great-grandfather was good > working-class stock, nothing. I assume this happened to many thousands of > families. > ================================= > Send a Message to the List - [email protected] > List Archive - > https://list.cotyroneireland.com/empathy/list/cotyronelist.list.cotyroneireland.com > Join the list by sending an email to - > [email protected] > To receive the Digest version, send an email to - [email protected] > Unsubscribe by sending an email to - > [email protected] > ================================= > ================================= > Send a Message to the List - [email protected] > List Archive - > https://list.cotyroneireland.com/empathy/list/cotyronelist.list.cotyroneireland.com > Join the list by sending an email to - > [email protected] > To receive the Digest version, send an email to - [email protected] > Unsubscribe by sending an email to - > [email protected] > ================================= >
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