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Ask the expert – absent service record

Our resident military expert Paul Nixon, pictured below, offers advice on how to solve your military family history mysteries.

From Mary Gregg:

‘My father served in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps in WWI. His name and number was Pte George Brunt 44919 – he later joined the 6th London regt. number 348277. I have his card but it gives no details of his actual service and I cannot trace his service records anywhere. I do know he served in France and was mentioned in two despatches as I saw the typed out pages which said he had captured a German trench. I also saw one that said he had captured some Germans single-handedly but these were lost by my family in the move to Australia. I would be most grateful for any information you can discover.’

Paul says:

‘Hello Mary. Thanks for writing to me.

The numbers date to quite late on in the war. 44919 for the King’s Royal Rifle Corps dates to March 1918 (almost certainly the first half of the month) and 348277 for the 6th London Regiment is a month or two after that. It’s possible that he was transferred from the KRRC to the 6th London Regiment under Army Order 204/1916, which dealt with compulsory transfers.

In the absence of a service record (which could have been destroyed as a result of enemy bombing during WWII) you could at least obtain a copy of the 6th London Regiment’s war diary from April 1918. This would give you an idea of what the battalion was up to at this time. The diaries are held at The National Archives in Kew but you could ask a researcher to obtain copies for you. As far as I know, this particular war diary is not available via documents online at TNA, although many are.’

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