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Vic Heritage
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Medals and trying to trace recipient

Hi, im new to the site so please forgive me if ive missed anything obvious!!!
I recently came across some medals from WW1 while clearning out my father’s possessions - the medals are the 1914 Star ( Mons Star) and clasp, Victory and BWM and are enscribed PTE FW Heritage, 1640 R WAR R. The person listed on the site of the same name is from a different part of the country and died in action. I suspect that the R War relates to the Warickshire reg which would tie in geographically.
Can i ask, Why wouldnt the owner of these medals be listed on this site??
How do i then go about and find out about the man and history behind the medals?? The fact that one of the medals s the Mons star is significant and places the recipient at the beginnings of WW1, defending France, which implies he was regular army. Any help or advice would be very appreciated.

Last edited by Vic Heritage

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22/03/2012 22:38:53

Ray McWilliams
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Quoting: Vic Heritage
Hi, im new to the site so please forgive me if ive missed anything obvious!!!
I recently came across some medals from WW1 while clearning out my father’s possessions - the medals are the 1914 Star ( Mons Star) and clasp, Victory and BWM and are enscribed PTE FW Heritage, 1640 R WAR R. The person listed on the site of the same name is from a different part of the country and died in action. I suspect that the R War relates to the Warickshire reg which would tie in geographically.
Can i ask, Why wouldnt the owner of these medals be listed on this site??
How do i then go about and find out about the man and history behind the medals?? The fact that one of the medals s the Mons star is significant and places the recipient at the beginnings of WW1, defending France, which implies he was regular army. Any help or advice would be very appreciated.

Last edited by Vic Heritage

Vic.

Can you double check the Reg no as the Medal Card for Pte Felix W Heritage shows that he was in the Royal Warks Regiment No 1649 NOT 1640. (I assume this is your man)

He was also Somerset LI Reg No33107 and Wiltshire Regt no27130.

His record does not appear in British Army WW1 Service Records on the sites I use either.....if you are not aware, 60% of WW1 records were destroyed by fire (bombing) in 1940. The Medal Rolls are reputedly complete.

For Unit Histories just search for what you want...eg War Diaries R Warks WW1 and see what there is.

Hope this helps

[]

Last edited by Ray McWilliams

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23/03/2012 12:21:10

Vic Heritage
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Thanks so much for that information. It was a bit of a shock discovering the medals - but made me want to find out more. If i am going to start researching my Grandfather’s war history, where is the best place to start??

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29/03/2012 22:47:11

Tim Hayhoe
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There’s another explanation why some sites might not have him listed: records after 1921 are still classified: hence even though he served in WWI if he served after 1921 or (as was common with younger servicemen) re-joined for WWII his main set of service records won’t as yet be declassified.

They are due for release from 2019 onwards.

I think you are right in the guess of ’R war’ being warwick however it is not ’a given’ that soldiers joined their local regiment: enlistement papers show you were randomly selected to serve, hence very few were in a local regiment en bloc.

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30/03/2012 08:40:58

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