Ox & Bucks Light Infantry

Anyone with an interest in the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry could do worse than at least check out this website: http://www.lightbobs.com/. The site is a bit clunky and in need of a re-design, but there's some good information here.

A word of advice: make sure that after you've clicked on a link on the right-hand menu, you scroll down the page past the menu bar. The design of the site leads you to believe that there is no content (see below), but as I say, you need to scroll down to the end of the menu.

The site is regularly updated and its scope is large, covering the regiment in all its many guises: Buckinghamshire Rifle Volunteers, Oxfordshire Light Infantry, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. There is a lot of useful detail on the regiment during the First and Second World War and the site owner, Steve Berridge, is to be congratulated for his labour of love. Well worth checking out.

The gratuitous cenotaph photograph was taken by me last week on a beautifully bright and sunny morning in Whitehall.

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Section D, Army Reserve 1923

I spotted this tucked away in a man's service record in WO 363 recently and thought I'd post it here as a matter of interest. I'm not sure which newspaper this particular appeal was published in but it must have been quite a tempting inducement to many. I presume that this appeal for men to join Section D of the Army Reserve was also open to men who had enlisted for wartime service only during the Great War - as was the case with the man who filled in this particular form.


The image is Crown Copyright, courtesy of The National Archives.

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Military DVDs at knockdown prices

Don't miss out on these current DVD-ROM bargains from Naval & Military Press. I have a number of these myself - and rather wish I'd invested in the Military Operations, France & Belgium instead of filling up my bookshelves with the books. You can buy the DVD of these volumes for £180. I think I was paying around £30 a volume when I was buying these Battery Press / IWM imprints in the eighties and nineties. My incomplete set goes up to the end of 1917 and takes up eighteen inches of bookshelf. What's more, I need to refer to indexes to find what I need. Here on a single DVD-ROM, you have everything at your fingertips - and it's fully searchable. After 25th January, this will cost £225, so make the most of it now.

The other stand-out publication here is the War Diaries' DVD-ROM: 4,500 separate war diaries of battalions which fought on the Western Front, comprising 1.52m pages in full colour - £360 now or £450 after 25th January. Remember too, that Naval & Military Press offers an interest-free easy-payment scheme where you can spread payments across four or ten months. Well, why wouldn't you?

All of these DVDs  - and books from Naval & Military Press's extensive back-catalogue are offered with a 20% discount until 25th January 2016 - so you'll need to be quick to catch these deals.

Here's a list of the titles with links to each of them.

Airmen Died in the Great War 1914-1918

British & Empire prisoners of war 1939-1945

British trench map atlas - Western Front

First World War campaign medal rolls

Official Boer War casualty rolls of the British and Empire Army 1899-1902

Sailors Died in The Great War

Silver War Badge roll

Soldiers Died in the Great War

War Diaries of the Battalions who fought the Great War on The Western Front

Military Operations, other theatres

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10th Hussars & Major Roland Pillinger

Here's a good site to visit, for anyone with an interest in the 10th Hussars or Queen Victoria's Army generally.


Born in 1860, Major Roland Pillinger joined the 10th Hussars as a private in 1879 and was commissioned twenty years later. This website charts his military career and includes hundreds of original photographs. It is, quite simply, a treasure trove. In my opinion, highlights of this website are the photos taken at Rawal-Pindi in 1910 (including the photo above) as well as the albums of X Hussars photographs covering the years 1879-1886. There are also previously unseen photos of the 1911 Delhi Durbar.

Navy & Army Illustrated 1897

One of my many side projects is an index of the first seven volumes of the Navy & Army Illustrated; this for my own purposes as, in my opinion, it remains an extremely useful reference resource for the late-Victorian Army. I thought readers might be interested in this article picked from Volume 3/31 and dating to February 1897.

"Men wishing to join the Army may exercise a considerable choice as to the corps in which they will serve. They may be enlisted for " general service," in which case they will be sent to cavalry, artillery, engineers, infantry, etc., according to their qualifications and to the requirements of the Service. Or they may be enlisted for "general service (cavalry)," or "general service (infantry)," in the former of which cases they will be sent to any cavalry regiment, and in the latter to any infantry unit, where their services may be required. Or they may require to be enlisted specially for the corps of Household Cavalry, for the corps of Dragoons of the Line, for the corps of Lancers of the Line, the corps of Hussars of the Line, the Royal Regiment of Artillery, the corps of Royal Engineers, individual regiments of Foot Guards or of the Infantry of the Line, the Army Service Corps, the Medical Staff Corps, the Army Ordnance Corps, the Post-Office Corps, the West India Regiment, the Roy3l Malta Artillery, or the Hong-Kong Regiment. A recruit cannot ordinarily enlist for a particular cavalry regiment, battery or company of Artillery, company of Royal Engineers, or battalion of infantry, but only for the whole corps of which such regiment, battery, company, or battalion forms part. A soldier's brother may, however, always require to be enlisted for the particular unit in which his brother is serving - following the example of the Irishman, who wanted to enlist in the 88th Foot so as to be near his brother in the 87th."

The "joke" of the last line is of course that whilst the numbered regiments of foot may have been consecutive (remembering too that they had ceased to exist sixteen years earlier), they were of course completely different and un-related regiments. At the time this article was written. The 86th (Royal County Down) Regiment of Foot had become the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, whilst the 87th (Royal Irish Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot had become the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers.

The image on this page is taken from the same issue and shows the Queensland Permanent Artillery on guard at Brisbane Barracks, Victoria.

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To the Kwai and back - Ronald Searle

I've been dipping into this book over the last few weeks and it is a compelling and harrowing read. In a single volume, this book also demonstrates why there will always be a market for good old-fashioned books as opposed to digital representations. For all its benefits, I struggle to understand how Searle's illustrations would translate to a Kindle.

Ronald Searle will be a familiar name to many but his drawings, made whilst he was a prisoner of the Japanese between 1941 and 1944, are his most powerful and haunting. To the Kwai and Back, first published in 1986 and republished twenty years later by Souvenir Press combines Ronald Searle's illustrations with his equally powerful commentary. Two years into his incarceration he writes, "Our eyesight was deteriorating, we were losing our memory... and our leg muscles were often as difficult to control as our bowels. Our teeth loosened or fell out and pellagra left us with raw, swollen tongues and fierce burning patches on our skin. As there was never any relief from the tropical heat in the prison and no clothing to protect us from the sun outside, we were rarely able to enjoy the luxury of being able to escape the offensiveness of our bodies for even a moment."

To the Kwai and Back documents the lives of the men whose fate it was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and also records the Japanese who guarded them. Some of the men are named - Barratt, in the illustration above is a good example - and it is possible with a little digging, to uncover more information about these named individuals. For instance, on page 86, Searle's drawing of a "Prisoner playing camp-made guitar" includes the additional information that this man is Don Hosegood. A search of the recently released PoW records on Findmypast brings up no fewer than seven separate documents for Sapper Donald Leslie Hosegood who was with Searle in Thailand and at Changi in Singapore. Ronald Searle, for that matter, also has a number of entries on Findmypast.

This is a well-written and well-illustrated book which serves as a good introduction to the horrors of the death camps of the Second World War. It should be compulsory reading.

I also offer a comprehensive, fast and cost-effective military history research service. Follow the link for more information. 

Naval & Military Press - Winter Sale - 20% discount

Forget Next, John Lewis, Blah-de-blah; this is the sale that matters. Naval and Military Press already offer some great deals on hard-to-find books and now you can save an additional 20% on all orders placed by 6pm on 25th January 2016.

I also offer a comprehensive, fast and cost-effective military history research service. Follow the link for more information. 

Boy service in the 2nd King's Own in 1896

The photo above was first published in the Navy & Army Illustrated in its issue dated 21st August 1896. The caption underneath the photo reads, "The oldest and youngest soldiers of the battalion".

Further down it is explained that Sergeant-Major Jepson and Private Stapleton had 22 years' and 21 years' service respectively, whilst Boy Stokes had less than six months' service.

There are at least six boys in this photo and at least three of the soldiers (one of whom must be Jepson) have four good conduct chevrons on their lower right sleeve whilst three soldiers have three chevrons each. So who were these youngsters and old hands? I thought I'd try and find out.

Sergeant Major Jepson

This man is possibly Charles William Jepson who would later become Lieutenant & Quartermaster and would serve in the Boer War.

Private Stapleton

No convincing match identified

Boy Stokes

5107 William Edward Stokes, born around November 1881 and enlisted in London on the 30th March 1896 aged 14 years and 4 months. Discharged as a lance-corporal in March 1908 on the termination of his first period of engagement.

These boys may also appear in the photo.

5085 John Frederick Barlow, born around September 1880 and enlisted in Manchester on the 6th March 1896 aged fifteen years and six months. Discharged June 1897, services no longer required.

5111 William Foster, joined 6th April 1896 aged 14 years and 4 months (about the same age as William Stokes). Discharged July 1898, services no longer required.

5141 Walter Ezekiel Adams, joined in London in May 1896 aged fifteen years and six months. Discharged medically unfit in October 1898. This boy joined later than Stokes but Stokes was younger than Adams.

5157 George Millwood, joined in London on the 13th June 1896 aged fifteen years and seven months. Discharged in June 1908 on the termination of his first period of engagement.

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The Blogger's bookshelf

Here are some recent reviews of Pen & Sword books, published on Amazon, which readers of this blog might find of interest. Books can be obtained directly from the publisher or from Amazon. Links on this page are to the Pen & Sword website.

Title: The Family History Web Directory: The Genealogical Websites You Can't Do Without
Author: Jonathan Scott

This is an ambitious undertaking and the author and the publisher must have been aware, as soon as they embarked on this mission, that no sooner had they published the book, than it would be out of date. I suspect that this will be a regularly updated publication, and it will need to be if it is to retain its usefulness. There has probably never been a better time to undertake family history research and I say that as someone who started embarking on my own research project around thirty years ago when there was nothing on line at all (in fact there wasn't even the concept of "online"). I began the hard way, trekking up to the National Archives, calling up documents and spinning through microfilm. I completed the project many years later by accessing those same documents on Findmypast and Ancestry when I was based in India. Today, as this new book highlights, there is so much more.

I would have liked to have seen some overviews of the main commercial family history providers - Ancestry and Findmypast - with honest appraisals of those sites in terms of content, search, navigation and value for money. Force War Records, minnows in the genealogy stakes, get far too much coverage for a company of their dubious worth. Caveat Emptor. There are also some errors. Findmypast did indeed purchase Origins, but the militia attestations were never part of the Origins collection but rather licensed direct from the National Archives along with soldiers' pensions records 1760-1915. There are also some startling omissions. Where for instance is the Army Service Numbers blog (http://armyservicenumbers.blogspot.co.uk/) which has been an extremely useful resource for many? [Yes, yes, I know that this is one of my blogs, but I am continually told how useful it is and I was genuinely surprised, or at least a little piqued, to find it not mentioned].

Overall though, this is a good book and should sell by the bucket-load at fairs such as Who Do You Think You Are? I rather think though that the author has set himself a task akin to painting the Forth Bridge.

Title: Victoria Crosses on the Western Front - April 1915 to June 1916
Author: Paul Oldfield

This is a weighty book packed with information. The author states that this is as much for the battlefield visitor as it is for the armchair reader, and if that's the case I would advise the battlefield visitor to buy the Kindle version. This is the second book in this particular series and follows the same format as the first volume. Details of the VC actions are explained in largely chronological order and are then followed by biographies of the winners. The actions occupy the first 184 pages whilst the biographies take up the next 270-odd pages.

There is a lot to recommend this book. Paul Oldfield obviously knows his stuff and is also quick to acknowledge the support of fellow members of the Victoria Cross Database Users Group. There are also ten pages of acknowledgements and sources, no wonder then that the actions are well-explained and the men well researched. Having been used to seeing the same images re-published again and again for a lot of these men, it was nice to see new contemporary images for many, and also to read more about their background and their families.

As you would expect with Pen and Sword, the book quality is first rate and old photos have been brought to life. The maps are also extremely useful and will be a particular boon to the battlefield visitor who can now visit the exact spots where the actions described took place. I can find nothing to fault this book. My copy will be a useful reference resource on the bookshelf at home - but I'll invest in the digital version when tramping across Flanders fields.

Title: The Fighting Pioneers: The Story of the 7th Battalion, DLI
Author: Clive Dunn

This book is up to Pen & Sword's usual high standards: a weighty hardback, nicely printed, solidly bound and, more to the point, packed full of well-researched information and photographs which won't have been seen by many before. If your ancestor served with this battalion then this book will be invaluable, particularly if read alongside the official battalion war diary.

Author Clive Dunn has used a myriad of sources to piece together this battalion's history from its origins in 1908 until the end of the war. There are accounts from the men who served as well as articles pulled from newspapers, and official sources such as published histories. A list of battalion awards, a nominal roll of men who landed with the battalion in April 1915, a roll of men known to have served in Volunteer Service Companies during the Boer War, Territorial Force War Medal recipients, and finally a roll of serving officers all provide layers of icing for this already rich fruit cake. There's also an index and a bibliography.

This is a great book that will be a very useful reference resource.

The Monocled Mutineer

First published in 1978, nearly forty years on, this is a timely and welcome re-print of a modern classic. My own copy of this book dates to 1986 and the paperback re-print issued to coincide with the BBC drama of the same name. It tells the story of a revolt; a mutiny even, by British and Commonwealth troops at Etaples in Northern France in 1917, and the charismatic and elusive Private Percy Toplis, the eponymous Monocled Mutineer. This Souvenir Press edition contains a new introduction by John Fairley, one of the co-authors, and new epilogue. That aside, the text is largely unchanged apart from some minor updates (inckluding the curious omission of the paragraph that dealt with acknowledgements to Murray Allison, Jill Barron, Tony Timmington and Richard Cackett).

Since this book was first published, many thousands of records have become available on line, and hundreds of new books have been written that cover aspects of the Great War in enormous depth. Hundreds of thousands of men passed through the hated "Bull Ring" at Etaples and The Monocled Mutineer probably gives the best overall account of the place. For this fact alone, the book is well-worth getting hold of.

If I have any criticism it is that more could have been done to make this work more accessible. An index would have been useful, and perhaps footnotes and a bibliography. The front cover photograph of troops in the trenches is credited to the Royal British Legion but who does the photo depict and which regiment were they serving with? Such detail could have been added without too much fuss and would have made the work more complete.

Nevertheless, this book will find a new audience - and deservedly so - as we approach the 100th anniversary of the mutiny in 2017.

I also offer a comprehensive, fast and cost-effective military history research service. Follow the link for more information.