When I was performing my FAN club research, I learned that my ancestor's two younger brothers had served in the British military during World War 1. The first brother I looked at (James - who I wrote about here) served honourably. He fought and ultimately died for his country. The second brother (David) had a remarkably different service record. His service file was unclear about how he left the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). At first he was called a deserted, but later on it was considered that he could have been a casualty. So what happened to David?
David, like his brother James, first enlisted with the militia but eventually transferred to the BEF. He served with the Middlesex Regiment as part of the 3rd battalion.
His battalion had a unique roll in WW1. They were responsible for the Salonika campaign in Greece. The purpose of this campaign was first to discourage Bulgaria from entering the war, then later on it was to discourage them from trying to take control of Greece. The campaign as a whole was brutal. What was initially anticipated to be a brief mission ended up lasting years. The soldiers, who were sent in the fall, were ill prepared for the harsh winter in the Greek mountains. Their trench coats and boots froze solid. The cold claimed more lives than any combat that they encountered. Some of the surviving men remember how their coats were completely frozen and how it would snap when they bent it.
Hearing of the harsh conditions made it no wonder that David would not have wanted to go. The first battalions arrived during October, while David's was sent two months later in December. His battalion travelled from France to Salonika via Egypt, however David never completed the journey. He was last seen leaving France on October 24 1915. The military did not know if he even reached Egypt. Initially they called him a deserted, but at the conclusion of the war some doubt began to enter everyone's mind.
I wanted to answer this 105 year old question so I began doing my own research. Here are a list of the best strategies to use when searching if you are also facing the same debacle.
1. Search their service file
I started by reviewing his service file to develop a timeline of when he was last heard from/seen. When I did this I noticed something strange. His mother claims to have last received a letter from him during July 1916 - that was seven months after he went missing! This made me believe that maybe he did desert.
2. Where were they last seen?
The exact location is important because it allows you to determine how likely either scenario was. For example, David was last seen in Le Havre which was miles away from any active combat. Le Havre was a very busy port used by the British forces, thus making it easy for one to disappear. Both facts lend to the theory of desertion instead of casualty.
3. What investigation was done?
If someone deserted and was not found by the end of the war, the War Office conducted an investigation to determine if they deserted or were killed in action. To truly determine which one happened, you need to understand how extensive their investigation was. The findings from this investigation could tell you the answer to your question or at the very least point you in a viable direction. The accompanying information may even help fill in some gaps in the timeline.
In David's case, the investigation was weak at best. Their search of England was incomplete. According to his service file they had only searched the area surrounding his last known residence and where his immediate family lived. They simply canvassed the neighbourhood on foot asking people if they had seen him, or a man similar in appearance. This confined the search area to a small overcrowded neighbourhood in Edmonton, Middlesex. Their search was far from exhaustive and left plenty of room for him to have been somewhere else or for someone to have been hiding him/helped hide him during the war. This also meant that they had not entertained the scenario where he was still hiding in France or another European country.
4. FAN Club research
FAN Club research is something we always hear people talk about but dont always fully understand how to apply it. I wrote a post here about how to make a visual representation of these relationships. In the case of a deserter it may help identify where they went or why they left. David chose a particularly unique date to go AWOL. His younger brother James received life threatening injuries and returned to England on October 26 1914. This meant that David left almost a year to the day after his brother was fatally injured at Ypres. This could have been a mere coincidence however I thought it to be unlikely. His battalion had frequently been moving around before this date, and debatably each port he passed through offered an equally easy opportunity for him to disappear, yet he chose October 24 1915. David's service file also noted a long history of him overstaying his time on leave, again leading to the theory that he likely planned his disappearance.
5. Battalion Log Books
There are a lot of different names for this type of record, but the idea is to find some record kept by the battalion that describes their daily activity during the war. If you cant find a logbook, a journal or diary by somebody in the battalion could also work. What you want to look for in these records are three different things: if your ancestor is mentioned, how many people went missing on that day, and what the battalion was doing that day. The reason why its helpful to know how many went missing is because it can give you a better idea of what happened to him. Were the other people captured for deserting? Or were they later found dead?
I am yet to find a record along these lines for David's battalion, but I have found a deserter book for WW1 soldiers. There were few men from his regiment that deserted, but none were from his battalion.
What did I conclude?
While I cant say for sure, I do believe that he deserted. His mother heard from him over a year after he went missing, he disappeared while his battalion was moving through one of the busiest ports in Europe, and he was last seen almost a year to the day after his brother James was fatally wounded. When the incomplete investigation is also considered, it becomes all the more likely that he did desert but never returned to his former neighbourhood.
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