William Ball, of the 7th Battalion Cameronians WW2

Hi All,

I am currently doing some research on my Great Great Uncle who died during WW2, he was in the 7th Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). We have his date of death as 15/03/1945 (27 years old) but we think he went missing and presumed dead. I've done a bit of research and found that his grave is at Reichswald Forest Cementary. We were always told he was crushed by a bridge being detonated ontop of him. I can see that a few other people in his Battalion have the same date of death. I was just wondering if anyone has any knowledge or information about the Cameronians during the 2nd World War and could maybe give me some insight or knew anyway of getting any war records to find out about what happened to my Uncle during the war. His details are below;

William Ball (Born 1917/1918) in Warrington England.
He was a Serjeant with the 7th Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), branch infantry
Service Number (I think) : 3250735

 

Request records of deceased service personnel

This link provides the documents you need to apply for his service records. These are essential to researching anyones military history, as it tells you who they were with and when.

TD

 

Just had a quick look at "Mountain and Flood - History of 52nd (Lowland Div)". On 13/3/45 the division took up positions on the west bank of the Rhine in the Wesel/Xanten area. No major actions took place over the next 10 days, just patrolling and raids.

 

UK, Army Roll of Honour, 1939-1945
Name: William Ball
Given Initials: W
Rank: Serjeant
Death Date: 15 Mar 1945
Number: 3250735
Birth Place: Warrington
Residence: Warrington
Branch at Enlistment: Infantry
Theatre of War: Western Europe Campaign, 1944/45
Regiment at Death: Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
Branch at Death: Infantry

If you know his mothers maiden name we can narrow down finding his birth details - at the moment there are 17 William Ball born in 1917 - 1919 in Lancashire

TD

 

His mother was Bertha Ball (nee Wareing/Waring)
His father was Thomas Ellis Ball

 

1939 REGISTER TRANSCRIPTION
290 Lovely Lane, Warrington C.B., Lancashire
NAME - DOB - OCCUPATION
Thomas E Ball - 02 Apr 1878 - Retired Fitter, Soapery
Bertha Ball - 25 Oct 1876 - Unpaid D Duties
Eva Ball -17 Nov 1911 - Bookbinder

 

That’s them.

 

Cheshire Marriages: 1902
BALL Thomas E
WAREING Bertha
Warrington, Civil Marriage or Registrar Attended

 

His father was Thomas Evans Ball.

Birth:
Name: Thomas Evans Ball
Registration Year: 1878
Registration Quarter: Apr-May-Jun
Registration district: Warrington

Death:
Name: Thomas Evans Ball
Death Date: 14 Jan 1956 (aged 77)
Death Place: Warrington

 

The 52nd Division, between 10 - 24 March 1945, had a defensive task holding the bund on the west bank of the Rhine River in the British 12 Corps sector, while the rest of 2nd British Army was preparing for the Rhine Crossing operation, which was launched on 24 March 1945.

See for a map: http://www.netterden.net/uploads/images/oorlog/Operation Plundergroot.jpg

The War Diary of the battalion might give some details about what happened on March 15th.

 

Where would I be able to get a war diary from?

 

England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007
Name: William Ball
Registration Date: 1917
Registration district: Warrington
Inferred County: Cheshire
Re-registration Year: 1917
Mother's Maiden Name: Wareing
Volume Number: 8c
Page Number: 330

7 Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) | The National Archives
Reference: WO 171/5167
Description:
7 Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
Date: 1945 Jan.- Dec.
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description

You can go yourself or we have some members from this site who offer a copying service at very good rates
TD

 

A few members on here copy for a reasonable price from the National Archives at Kew.
You mght be lucky someone might have them already and if they see this thread might post them

 

Hi there,

I've been researching my own father's time in the 7th Cameronians and went through my collected material and found some items directly related to the death of Serjeant William Ball. I hope the below material helps shed light on the death of your Great Great Uncle for you.

7th Cameronians War Diary
Gest, Germany – 15 March 1945
[I’ve spelled out the various abbreviations in order for the account to be more legible.]

“C” Company sent out an early morning patrol to occupy South end of WESEL railway bridge. LT MACKAY, SGT BALL and 2 riflemen entered a concrete shelter underneath the bridge and two large explosions followed. A large part of the South end of the bridge was demolished and large blocks of masonry and steel work fell on the concrete shelter. The other members of the patrol found it an impossible task to locate and extricate the missing personnel. CAPT MCLAREN and 2 secs carrier platoon stood by and attempted rescue but owing to the large masses of stonework the task had to be given up. As the position was completely overlooked and within small arms range of the enemy positions it was not considered possible to recover the missing members of the patrol. The demolition of the first span of the bridge was considered to have been a delayed action demolition by the enemy.

“The Sergeant Sang: The War Journal of a Scottish Rifleman” (1992) by Sjt. James W. Carnegie
[In this self-published book based on Carnegie’s war journals, he recalls your Great Great Uncle’s death. Unfortunately, his 1945 journals were lost so his account in 1992 is based on memories of events that took place almost four decades earlier and thus not entirely accurate. Four men, not three, were killed. And Norrie/Norman Platt was indeed one of them.]

While we were at Burrerich, a standing patrol of three men were on duty under the West side of the Wesel Bridge which the Jerries had blown – I can’t remember if they were “A” Company (somehow I don’t think they were, though Norrie Platt’s name came to mind), though of course, he survived the war, so it couldn’t have been him on the patrol. Anyway an explosive charge went off in the bridge remains and brought it down about them, killing and burying all three. Must have been an enemy patrol that had come over in the cover of our smokescreen and laid a delayed action charge. A pretty dirty way to fight a war wasn’t it? It was some months later before a volunteer party from the battalion came back and dug the bodies out to give them a decent burial.

The Covenanter – July 1945 p. 176
[The following account was written by Lt. Col. Forbes, Commanding Officer of the 7th Cameronians in a letter to the Colonel of the Regiment and republished in The Covanter, the monthly magazine of the Cameronians Regiment.]

A Platoon Commander (Mackay) was killed, together with Sjt. Ball and two other ranks, when one of the large concrete railway bridge arches, under which they had a night protection, blew up. This was caused by a delayed action charge or remote control from the other side of the river.

All four men are buried in adjacent plots in the REICHSWALD FOREST WAR CEMETERY (Plots 49. A. 13/14/15/16).

Serjeant William Ball
Age: 27
Service Number 3250735

Lieutenant Ian Hendry MacKay
Age: 20
Service Number 308214
Son of James and Evelyn Gertrude Elizabeth MacKay, of Hale, Lancashire.

Rifleman Cecil Lambert Atkinson
Age: 20
Service Number 14416337
Son of John Thomas Atkinson and Mary Isabella Atkinson, of Byker, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Rifleman Norman Platt
Age: 27
Service Number 3250709
Son of Bertie and Ethel Platt; husband of Eileen O'Mara Platt, of Hampton Hill, Middlesex.

 

Hi, Could you please tell me where i can source these documents. My Grandfather served with the 7thBn and was kia 04/04/1945

I would like to follow his journey through these records

 

As suggested in the other thread
you will require his service records Get a copy of military service records and you can used the CWGC cert as the proof of death
Cost is £30 plus date of birth and CWGC cert

then you will require the war diaries for his regiment

 

Hi. The British Army Casualty Lists are available on Find My Past. I get free membership through my local library.

If you give me a name I'll fetch the record.

 

Could you please maybe find details of my Grandfather
J.E.W Geddes kia 04/04/1945 he is buried in Reichswald Cemetery. Many thanks in advance, I hope you can help me

 

Sorry for the delay - I'm at the mercy of the library opening times.

Here's the entry:




Oddly, when I searched by name it didn't produce the above. So I searched by his service number and there it was.