enlisted in another name

[wesmorland]

have emailed the cwgc so will see what comes back from them


cheers

[wesmorland]

that would be great Astoria, i realy appreciate it indeed.


many thanks

[Astoria]

Click on my name and you will see "send a private message to Astoria" easy to do and no-one will see your email.

[wesmorland]

thanks to Astoria i now have his medal card, really pleased about that, thanks Astoria much appreciated.

[Maximilian]

I see that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has Samuel listed under both BAGG and VAGG. Perhaps if you contacted them they might be able to throw some more light on the situaton.

Subject to anything that CWGC may say, my most likely informed supposition is that the confusion was originally due to a mishearing by the recruiting officer at the time of enlistment - Bagg is a much more common name than Vagg, and supporting documentation was never requested. It could be that Samuel was only semi-literate - lots of recruits were, and, indeed, still are - and therefore did not query what was written by the officer/NCO on the Attestation Paper for him to sign, or it could be that he was the kind of person that just never challenged an authority figure.

Either way, the mistake clearly came to light eventually, but it would have been in the nature of the way military bureacracy worked that a complete change of record would not have been made, but simply a note of an alternative name.

Nothing sinister on anyone's part - a simple initial confusion compounded by bureaucracy.

[wesmorland]

thanks maximilian, think you have hit the nail on the head.

cheers much appreciated

[Aoibhell]

I would agree with the mishearing idea on the name
Just think about where he was born & where he enlisted
Maybe the accent was different, even now some are hard to understand!!


Cheers Aoibhell

[greann]

Hi,
My great granddad also changed his name. He tried to enlist during the Boer War, but they were on to him for being way to young. So he walked around the block, went back to the same enlistment officer and changed his name and his age. They accepted him as a bugler!!!!
When WW1 came around he just stuck to the same false name.
Ann