Help needed - WW1 service history, Thomas Turner

[Pam Turner]

Hello all,

Trying to find out something about my paternal Grandfather's WW1 service history.

From info my Mother gave to me he may have been involved in the occupation of the Rhineland post WW!. I have no details of his ervice number, but from photographs, very few, it looks as if he may have been conscripted into the Manchester Regiment. His cap badge looked as if it was the Manchesters and on his sleeve I thinkk it said Manchester.

His name was Thomas John Turner, from Bootle, Merseyside and he was born on 26 April 1900.

Searches of army service records, and membership of a genealogy website have yielded nothing. Could be that his records were in the  so called 'burnt documents'.

Any help, hints, gladly appreciated.

Many thanks, in advance.

Pam Turner

[charlie]

Hello Pam and welcome to the forum.
Is it possible to post the photo(s)? It may help to confirm his regiment and when he served. It is possible, due to his date of birth, that his service record is still with the Ministry of Defence.
Charlie

[Pam Turner]

Thank you for the welcome.

I have attached a photo of my Grandfather.

Look forward to hearing from you.

[charlie]

Hello Pam
Thanks for posting the photo, even though the capbadge isn't very clear it looks to be the Manchesters capbadge. There looks to be a ,,bar" above his shoulder title, can you see any detail on the original photo?

He would have been called up between his birthday and 11th November 1918. Call ups ceased on 11th November and conscription ceased on 15 January 1919. As you probably already know he has no medal entitlement, which indicates that he had no overseas service prior to the armistice. If as you say he served with the army of occupation and did not become a regular soldier he would have served with either the 51st, 52nd or 53rd Battalions. The soldiers sent to Germany were already in the ,,system" before the armistice. The respective War Diaries are available on Ancestry or as downloads from the National Archive, but are very unlikely to mention him by name.

As regards a service record please see my post in the General Discussion section

Hope this helps
Charlie

[Pam Turner]

Many thanks for your reply.

Zooming in on my Grandad's photo the shoulder badge reveals the first few letters of the word Manchester, but that is the only other thing I can tell you.

Thank you though for your comments and the info that the MoD might hold some records.

Kind regards,
Pam