Weekly list of casualties

[Ed McKie]

I am researching my wife's grandfather. Frederick Feston royal west surrey regiment.
He is listed on CWGC as dead 26 October 1917. NNG
There is also an index card on IRCRoss which says wounded/missing 13 October.

There are no service records so I would like to reconcile these two dates by finding an entry on the weekly list of casualties.

However the only place which appears to have indexed them is a web site which wants a subscription before even being able to look.

Apparently there are bound copies around but I can't find them.

Emails to the imperial war museum and manchester libraries have gone unanswered.

Any suggestions please.

Ed

[Peter Goodey]

I rather thought that "Soldiers Died in the Great War" - widely available as an online database - was originally compiled from the War Office Casualty Lists. If that is so, I'm afraid your search wouldn't be productive.

Unless there's a mention in the battalion war diary - I dare say you've already checked that - I can't think what else you might do. I'm sure there would only be one official and legal date of death otherwise there could be all sorts of legal problems.

[Ed McKie]

Peter
I didnt know that SDGW was compiled from the official lists. But it is the wounded aspect I was interested in. The Times stopped including ORs in their extracts from the weekly list so that is why I need to go back to the official lists. If Fred Feston was wounded and died of wounds later then that would probably not get mentioned in CWGC. And in any case if he was wounded and died later then of course he would not be listed as no known grave either. No matter how many books I read, I cant get a handle on the procedure ( and there would have been one !) on how long after a man went missing was he listed as such, and how much longer after that did they decided that he was dead, and following on from that how did they pick a date for his death ?

regards Ed

[christanel]

Hello Ed

I know next to nix about military stuff so am on a very steep learning curve. In your first post you say

There is also an index card on IRCRoss which says wounded/missing 13 October

What is IRCRoss?
Secondly, without seeing the original so this is just an observation and probably completely wrong - you have typed wounded/missing. Is that how it is typed on the original form? Could it be that one of the words, eg missing, should have been crossed out leaving the word wounded.
How that reconciles with No Known Grave I don't know.

As I said - a steep learning curve for me.

Christina

[Peter Goodey]

What is IRCRoss?

International Committee of the Red Cross?

[SueNSW]

International Committee of the Red Cross?

New records online at - https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Search

Ed - the war diaries of the QRWS Regiment have been put online here - https://qrrarchive.websds.net/menu1.aspx?li=1

The 2nd battalion doesn't seem to have a lot of info for the period you are looking at but there are casualty numbers mentioned

If you can't get what you want from them might be worth contacting the knowledgeable Great War Forum

[christanel]

International Committee of the Red Cross?

Thanks Peter,

another of those things that when pointed out seem obvious.

Christina

[Megan Roberts]

I heard on one of the many TV programmes about WW1, that the Govt banned the publication of casualty lists after a certain point in time, because they were worried that the sheer number of dead and wounded would demoralise the public.

How about looking in newspapers local to his home, as there might be mention there? Many libraries provide free access to search newspaper data bases - its certainly so in Lancashire, and in fact my readers card allows me to access the sites from my home.

[pippycat]

Find a Grave has:

Frederick Feston
Death: 26 Oct 1917
Queens Reg (Royal West Surrey) 2nd Bn
No: T/265338
age: 25
husband of Ada Rosetta Feston

Burial: Tyne Cot Memorial
Zonnesbeke
West Flanders
Belgium
- shows his name on the memorial.


Ed, the following maybe from 'the genealogist' site you mentioned!

Daily list 2 Jan 1918 - published on War Office Casualty List dated 8 Jan 1918:

Under Queens (Royal West Surrey Reg) F Feston 265338 (Peckham Park SE) is listed as missing.

Rebecca

[Ed McKie]

My apologies for this tardy response.

Thank you all for your responses particularly Rebecca for the quote from the casualty list, can you advise where you saw this ?

It explains something, but then provokes other questions.

this is still the same Frederick Feston listed as dead on CWGC site for 26th October and yet here in January he is shown as missing.
Anyone who has ever served in the army will be quite prepared to accept a breadkdown in the communication system as being the reason, but in all my reading I have never come across a similar situation before.
My initial thinking with regard to the Red cross index card was that it is a record of an enquiry from his mother about her missing son. that could be that there was no communication between her and her daughter in law- things happen in families.

But that doesnt explain the discrepancy off dead in October and missing the following Jan. I will need to find if he had been listed as dead in an earlier list, if I can find a copy.

Cheers ED