Welch fusiliers, casualty buried at Arromanches, what could have caused his death?

Hopefully it’s not a relation to Frank Richards DCM MM RWF - a pre WW1 regular and author of Old Soldiers Never Die & Soldier Sahib.

His WW2 Home Guard memoir is in this GWF topic -

Frank Richards (Old Soldiers Never Die & Old Soldier Sahib)

Steve

 

Appreciated! I'll take a look.

 

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dbf, thank you for introducing me to this rich & interesting resource, I will certainly check it out as soon as it's possible.

I'm using info. given to me, rather than collected by me, so I will try and obtain chapter & verse about how it's known the man was definitely a casualty, and then post it up here.

I'm also considering the possibility that the man had a double-barrelled name and only used a part of it (and complex names are notoriously difficult to place (and locate) in Indexes etc). I knew a (posh) guy once who had a 3-part surname!

May I ask what happens regarding a soldier's death certificate, if no actual date of death can be specified?

Harry

 

Did soldiers on active service in the world wars have death certificates? Demands for autopsies and inquests has been politically sensitive with bodies returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Canada also issued death certificates. The online Canadian War Dead Service Files are full of them.

Insurance Companies were head of the queue asking families to provide official proof of death before they were able process life insurance claims. They were closely followed by solicitors requiring evidence of death in order to finalise soldiers estates (transfer of land etc) on behalf of surviving dependants as per the instructions in the soldiers will or by the appropriate Provincial laws of intestacy/inheritance.


Steve

 

I'm learning a great deal from your contributions and it's filling out the picture. Many thanks.

Please may we return to the Q about Arromanches.
There were a number of temporary cemeteries set up for D-day which are right on the coast. I need to understand whether those mid-June/early July '44 casualties who got buried at Arromanches might have been brought to the coast from further inland, or whether Arromanches/Graye-sur-mer etc was used primarily for bodies taken from the water or killed on the beach. (The bodies were later concentrated to Bayeux etc).
Is anyone familiar with Forces practice, in this regard?
Harry

 

Bayeux appears to have been open for business quite early on. A group of 1 Rifle Brigade casualties were killed by a stray or lucky shell into their HQ area on 20 June. They were taken to Bayeux for burial but - probably in error - were buried by the unit in the civilian cemetery. They are still there.

 

Your original question is that you want to find a man, POSSIBLY a Welch Fusilier who MAY have died between D Day and 2nd July (where does such a specific date originate?) who MIGHT have had the name Richards, but appears not to be commemorated by Name.
Is that accurately summing up your question?
Do you have any clue as to whether he was an officer or not?
Anything about previous life before the Army?
Where he came from, other family?
Any memorabilia, letters, medals, photos?

 

There was also a War Office Certificate of Death - not sure if everyone got them or if it was only on request

 

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I wish I had more to offer. I've taken over a search from another (trusted) researcher so I'm working from archived notes.
The notes may consist of personal testimony, and so spellings and name-forms may not be 100% accurate, because what gets written down doesn't always correspond exactly with what's said (given people's local accents etc). So I have to be creative and think sideways.

Welch fusiliers is believed to be as close as possible. Mortar crew.
The RICHARDS could be a final surname or part of a hyphenated or double name, or a middle name; it doesn't appear to be a first name.

Useful: an earlier part of the name is Grant or Gerant or [at a push] Geraint.
Grant-Richards?, just a guess, to try & expand the possibilities.

The 'Richards' could be (using my imagination) Pritchard or Richard-son; people aren't always correct in what they scribble down and things can be incomplete.

I have no details about family yet.
I'm sorry it's hazier than we would like. But it's a genuine enquiry, and I believe it's possible to work towards the truth/actual facts by gathering information.
Harry

 

You're opening my eyes to what's out there, very many thanks. I will follow this up. Harry

 

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Right. Thanks for this. it shows that there's no particular pattern to where the men were put, or at least there can be surprising exceptions to what you'd expect.
Harry

 

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That's interesting. I'd never have expected that. It shows you always need to look 'outside the box' when searching for someone. Thanks for the information. Harry

 

175 RWF dead 6th June-30 July 1944 (France)

6 RWF dead in month of June 44.

1st casualty 6th RWF (Possibly Commando) killed D-Day buried originally at Ranville.
1st casualty RWF (not Commando) 28th June 44

6 RWF buried UK June-July

Grave concentration documents have original burial locations. None name `Arromanches` as original resting places?

TREVOR THOMA LLEWELLYN
Fusilier14606208 29 June 1944 Age 37 TILLY-SUR-SEULLES WAR CEMETERY VII. B. 7.VIEW RECORD Royal Welch Fusiliers

LESLIE GEORGE GODDARD
Fusilier 1500750 28 June 1944 Age 26 BAYEUX WAR CEMETERY III. K. 12. VIEW RECORD Royal Welch FusiliersUnited

DAVID HENRY ARTHUR EVANS Fusilier4209975 07 June 1944 Age 20 BAYEUX MEMORIAL Panel 14, Column 1.VIEW RECORD Royal Welch Fusiliers

WILLIAM DRAPER
Lance Corporal 4207000 30 June 1944 Age 20 RANVILLE WAR CEMETERY IVA. H. 12.VIEW RECORD Royal Welch Fusiliers

REGINALD FREDERICK SCHOOLEY
Captain129602 08 June 1944 Age 28 HERMANVILLE WAR CEMETERY 1. G. 22 .VIEW RECORD Royal Welch Fusiliers

ARTHUR CHARITY
Fusilier 4206553 06 June 1944 Age 24 LA DELIVRANDE WAR CEMETERY, DOUVRES V. C. 3.VIEW RECORD Royal Welch Fusiliers



Kyle

 

Something I've now been told is that if there is a CWGC entry, then there is no need for a formal Death Certificate, as the casualty has been accepted by the CWGC it satisfies the MoD criteria.
However, we still have to find who this chap is, and if buried as an Unknown the CWGC aspect isn't relevant.
Still, may be useful for other enquiries.

As regards burials, it also depends on when the remains were found, a battlefield or hasty beach burial may have been lost and not discovered until much later and taken to the nearest open CWGC cemetery. A burial in a village churchyard may also have been removed much later than wartime.

 

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You're very kind. Thanks a lot for your time. Good to have these facts & figures, they build up the picture well.

I'm currently working through the 300+ digitised pages of the typed-up Casualty records for 44/45 as suggested to me yesterday. These include typed corrections, and notes which show that some men from the Welch were moved around (presumably at very short notice) and may not appear as RWF in final records. Also it's clear that the online Indexes are not always accurate, and I need to go deeper, and into the originals if I can find them. I'll post up anything I spot which might help the search.

By the way, is there any main index of which men originally got buried at Arromanches, then were moved to bigger cemeteries? I haven't found anything - you seem to have to go to the concentration documents and collect all the small entries, which takes ages.
Harry

 

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Didn't know any of that! Thanks a lot.
[My usual work is with missing civilians in peace-time, I'm new to war records, so I have a lot to learn.]
The notes I have, suggest that the date of death or going missing won't be later than very early July 44 and could possibly be as early as the first week in June 44. I take your good point that it could be a hasty beach burial etc. which was later discovered and taken to a cemetery that could receive it, which was not necessarily close to where the death happened. I'm wondering if a man could be out-of-place also because he'd been taken to the coast and was due to be repatriated (but died), or was in hospital at a distance from where he was wounded. But I would be surprised if the burial was after 1st week in July, whether the death occurred then or much earlier in June.
Harry

 

or died after being brought back to UK hospital "somewhere"?
Maybe no identification on him