Genealogy Chat

Thanks, that's really interesting. It did seem to me far fetched.

Helen - I think not. If a shell passed that close to his trench, he'ld almost surely be in the blast zone, and death thru blast injury is much more likely. The pressure wave gets into the airspaces in the body - lungs and stomach, and completely wrecks them, and the guy, who will be concussed, suffers a massive haemorrhage He can appear unmarked externally. This has been remarked on by ww2 blitz survivors, too.

Thanks so much everybody for all this advice. It's going to be useful in my quest! The story is that my great great uncle was alone in the trench. Being a teetotaller he didn't want to hang out with his comrades who were carousing in the 'dug out'! Apparently a shell flew over sucking all the air from the trench and he suffocated to death. Does this sound likely?!
Helen

Hi there,
We had a rumour that ours was a prisoner of war and we couldn't prove it. Sent of for death certificate even thought peopel said it would only contain killed in action, but low and behold, it says prisoner of war, died of the spanish grippe or the spanish flu that killed thousands at the end of the war. So sad to think that he fought for his country, got held as a prisoner and then was on his way home and died of the flu. But then you could just get killed in action, its all pot luck, so good luck with your search. I also have a tunneller and it mentions him by name as dying, but he wasn't a private as someone else has mentioned. Happy hunting.

Annie - yes, I expected to see that sort of thing. It is what one sees in the WW1 register,
where there's 8 deaths (5 Killed in Action, 1 Died of Wounds, 2 Death Assumed on or since).

The really sad one is the Boer War register, which has 33 entries, and 20 of these are deaths from diseases. Only 7 are battle deaths (the suspicious sounding Gun shot wounds is 2 days after the Battle of Calenso, so will be a battle death). Another sad aspect is that war started 11/10/1899, and 16 deaths are in the first year. Just before the year was up, Lord Roberts, the British C-in-C, had a George Bush-like "Mission Accomplished" moment, and went home. Over half the deaths here follow his departure.

Hi Helen,
I have done some similar research recently and managed to find out exactly what you want to know.
I used CWGC to find out his battalion, regiment and date of death.
Then I went to Kew and read the battalion war diary for the days around where he died. This gave me details of the action, movement of the troops and numbers killed in each battle. Unfortunately only the officers get named; ordinary ranks are just numbers.
Hope this is of some help.
Janice

If you want to see an image of a WW1 death register, there's a free example link in the last line of:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=554&404
English registers look pretty much the same.

Most records for soldiers would just say died of wounds, but if you are looking for what happened at a specific place/battle then you could use Google, or try this forum

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/

Roy

You could get his death certificate but this is most likely to say "Killed in action" or "Died of wounds". You could look at the War Diary for his battalion to see what they were involved in on the day of his death although it's probably unlikely that the exact circumstances of his particular death will be mentioned. Some war diaries are online on the documentsonline website. If it's not there, it means a trip to the National Archives.

Hello,
How would i go about finding out the circumstances surrounding my great great uncle's death in WW1? Is this even possible? I know the date and place but not HOW. I'd really like to know so i could quash or confirm some family 'stories'.
Hope somebody can help.
Thanks, Helen