I was going through some of my Service books last night, the ones I knew had been Commissioned and downloading the PDFs from the London Gazette, when I noticed these 3 that seem totally unlinked - when Commissioned the officers Personal numbers they were issued are LeWarne 271168, Lindsay 271169 and Lugg 271170, so they are sequential - all 3 are on the same group on the LG page, this seems an amazing coincidence. Of the 3 I know Lindsay & Lugg survived but LeWarne was killed in Italy (see http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/32130-casualty-service-and-paybook-collection/#entry389507 ) Alistair
HI Ron, I have seen a few with photos, apparently soldiers proceeding on leave to Ireland (North or Eire) were supposed to get a photo with unit stamp added - I have also seen them on foreign troops books (Polish, Czech etc) Regards Alistair
Alistair, That is an amazing coincidence, but these are the sorts of things that happen to us WW2 researchers. I'm with Ron too, I have never seen a photo in one of these books before. On eBay a few years back there was a lot for a Signalman who had served in China and then was seconded on to Chindit 1. This had his Chinese passport amongst the documents with photograph, I wished I had upped my anti on the lot, which I lost by a few quid when it passed the £100 mark. Happy New Year. Steve
2 Consecutive would have been a surprise so 3 was unbelievable. Every now and then I have a good run through either the info I already have or a new source when I find one and there is always something interesting turns up, who knows what other stories there are still to be uncovered. Just wait til the WW2 records are made available I do have one other pair of books that are consecutive Army numbers and on top of that both were promoted and had consecutive Personal numbers - they were twins though so I got both books together. Regards Alistair
Alistair, amazing coincidence. Don't know whether you have looked at their previous occupations but they were an Architect, Surveyor and Civil Engineer. Do you know what unit they ended up with?
Their occupations do seem like the kind that would have them marked out as potential RE Officers - in terms of their units LeWarne was 622 Field Squadron when Killed but I am not sure about his earlier units Lindsay was Pioneer Corps, then RAOC as an OR then went to 148 Training Brigade RA then 148 Training Brigade RE then 140 OCTU RE Field before being posted to 45td Div HQ RE, 614 Field Company RE, RE Depot Halifax, 259 Field Company RE and seems to have gone about a few units with the occupying force - while he was with 259 Fd Coy they were part of 135 Force (The Channel Island liberation force)but that seems to have been his first foray abroad. Lugg was No3 TBRE (Training Brigade RE?) as an OR then onto 140 OCTU RE - from there he was posted to 866 ME (Mechanical Equipment) Company RE, 136 ME Company RE, then to 59 ME Platoon RE with whom he went Overseas on 1 June 44 (I see a 59 ME Section as part of the beach group on Juno so I guess its them and the 1st is when he embarked or at least was sealed in) - just after VE day he went to 866 ME Company Alistair
This is the sort of threads that I really enjoy. A coincidental (or is it) consecutive number series AB64 and the later history of the men involved. Futher reseach needed I think Alistair into all of the above units and service records. I would like to help but heavily involved in other reseach at the moment.
This just got even stranger - I have Lindsay and Luggs AB439 (Officers record of service books) as well as their AB64's - so I was having a look at them to answer Mike L's question on units, so I had a look at my other AB439's and found this - 271166 G R Hill's, so I am now only 1 missing number from having 4 in a row. I think there must be more to this than just luck - I seem to remember I had a little run of buying AB64's & AB439's from one Ebay seller (maybe someone else bought 271167) - I'm wondering if these have been "obtained" at some point from a file somewhere? maybe in a dodgy way or maybe an archive was being cleared out somewhere (like when the RAF got rid of old logbooks) and someone has taken the opportunity to grab a handful. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing at the moment Alistair
