Kitchener's Army recruit at The Somme and Ypres
My grandfather John Drawbell was born on 17 July 1870 in Linlithgow, Scotland. The story went that he left home when he was very young and joined the Highland Light Infantry. He stayed in the army all his life, spending several years, I believe, in India. I know he was based at Edinburgh Castle as my mother was Christened in St Margaret's Chapel there in 1906.
As a pre-war regular he was commissioned as Lieutenant into the 11th battalion part of K1. According to historian Everett Sharp, K1 was the first of six new armies named after Herbert Kitchener, then Britain's Secretary of State for War, who recognised there was a need for many men for a long war on the continent.
Sharp says that because of the small size of the British Army at the outbreak of the war, all men with previous military experience were welcomed back with open arms, even at the advanced age of 44.
According to Sharp, it looks as though my grandfather went into action at The Somme after training to France, later moving on to Ypres, then Passchendaele in July 1917, when in the same month he was promoted to captain.
There is a note that he was mentioned in dispatches four times in 1916 and 1917. His medals were the 1914 Star, War Medal and Victory Medal.
After the war he brought me up almost single-handed until I was 10 as my mother was ill with MS.
Sergeant Service No 3530
Campaign medals - India Medal Clasps Awarded: Punjab Frontier 1895-1902
Service Book John Drawhill
CONTRIBUTOR
Anna Lever
DATE
-
LANGUAGE
eng
ITEMS
15
INSTITUTION
Europeana 1914-1918
PROGRESS
METADATA
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