04 June 2007

More family history

James O’ Sullivan has an excellent website about my grandfather’s regiment, the Munster fusiliers. His father served in the first battalion, which saw action at Gallipoli before transferring to the Western Front in 1916.

I am very grateful to James for providing me a clipping from the Times dated 23 March 1915, which lists members of the 2nd battalion that had been taken prisoner. One of them is my grandfather. There is no record of any members of the battalion taken prisoner between the Etreux rearguard action of 27 August 1914 and the publication of the list in the Times.

The conclusion is that my grandfather was one of a just a few hundred soldiers that held up a whole German corps for a crucial twelve hours and thus helped ensure the survival of the British Expeditionary Force in its retreat from Mons to the Marne.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You've done some amazing research. I have no idea what my grandfather did in WWI - all I have is a single photo of him in his uniform.

jams o donnell said...

Thasnks Roger. I can't say that I did a lot but talking to James O Sullivan was definitely a good move!