Francis Roloff - Rifle Brigade

I've received a message from Ann Roloff on my Royal Engineers' post about her great grandfather, Francis Charles John Roloff which I reproduce in part, below:

"The card says he was in the Rifle Brigade - am I right in thinking that's what the 'S' stands for, in his regiment number? His rank was Private. But what does the number 10807 correspond to exactly? Can I find out, somewhere, where they were stationed? Also, on the card there is a Victory medal listed, with roll number: M/102 [looks like a]B 18 [[M/102B18]], and page:2430."

I've reproduced the Medal Index Card above and also checked to see if there is a surviving service record in WO 363 or WO 364. There isn't.

The S/ prefix indicates a WW1 enlistment for the Rifle Brigade so we know that he enlisted for wartime service only and wasn't a pre-war regular or a member of the Special or Extra Reserve. The fact that he received the British War Medal and Victory Medal only also indicates that he didn't arrive overseas until 1st January 1916 or later.

The medal index card (MIC) reference number is M/102B 18 which is the reference number for the actual medal roll. His entry appears on page 2430.

The letter M on the MIC reference is the code for the record office, in this case Winchester, and M/102B is the reference for the Rifle Brigade. This code tells us that Francis last served with the Rifle Brigade and that his medals were issued through the Winchester record office. There is no battalion mentioned on the MIC but a check of the original medal roll (housed at The National Archives) may (or may not) reveal that. You can view these rolls at The National Archives or engage a researcher to look at these for you. If you can identify the battalion, you'll then be able to consult the relevant battalion war diary.

As for Francis' number, my data suggests that it dates to around the third week of May 1915. I would also add that there are Rifle Brigade experts who regularly visit The Great War Forum and they may be able to fill in more details for you. The GWF is a fantastic resource and always worth a visit.

I also offer a comprehensive, fast and cost-effective military history research service. Follow the link for more information.

Enlistment dates on medal index cards

This post will suggest some tips for finding army service numbers and their corresponding date of issue using medal index cards. There are a number of different medal index cards (MIC) which were used to record a man's First World War medal entitlement, but this post is just concerned with those which also show his enlistment date.

I should say at the outset that using the MICs to accurately plot the date that an army number was issued to a soldier, can be a risky business. However, with so many WW1 service records destroyed during WW2, they can be a useful secondary source, provided you tread with care. I'll come back to this point later.

If you have an account with Ancestry.co.uk, identifying those cards that show the enlistment dates and those that don't, is a pretty straightforward task. There are three different versions of MIC which I have illustrated below. These images are Crown Copyright of the National Archives and I have removed those details which would identify the soldier.

Version 1
The most common of the MICs. No provision to record date of enlistment or discharge / disembodiment and I personally don't recall ever seeing this information recorded on these cards.


Version 2
Many men receiving the Silver War Badge (SWB) had their entitlement to it recorded on this card, particularly if this was their only entitlement. The man below fell into this category and was discharged medically unfit. There is provision on this card to record the date of enlistment and date of discharge. Printed information at the bottom of the card gives details of the print run and the date of that run, in this case 200,000 printed in November 1916.


Version 3
Probably the least common of the medal index cards and whilst there is no provision to include date of enlistment / discharge, these are sometimes found added in (as below). Again, printed information at the bottom of the card gives details of the print run and the date of that run, 20,000 in April 1918 in the example shown.



The first thing to note about these cards is that they are different colours. That's important if you're scrolling through the MICs on Ancestry because the darker cards stand out like a sore thumb.
The second point to note is that those cards which were issued to men who just received the SWB often record the regiment details slightly differently. So for instance, version 3 above, records the regiment as W Yorks. A search on that specific term on Ancestry, yields 2,290 MICs. Type in West Yor* however, and the count shoots up to 67,678. The percentage of cards showing enlistment dates is far higher on the W Yorks search than it is on the West Yor*, and the same holds true for every other regiment that I have looked at.

The variation in the spelling of the regiment name may often be subtle, but once you have identified what those variations are, it's then a simple matter to run a search based on that.
I mentioned at the start of this post that it can be risky to build an accurate database of enlistment dates based solely on the information recorded on MICs. For one thing, the enlistment date may not be the date that the man joined the unit shown on the MIC. He may have joined another regiment initially and then transferred.

Also, for enlistment, read ""attestation". It is particularly important to bear this point in mind when looking at MICs recording enlistment dates from November 1915 onwards as many of the dates shown refer to Derby Scheme attestations. So, in a typical scenario, a man may attest under the Derby Scheme in November or December 1915, go back home to await mobilisation and then be called up some months later. In these cases, the date of enlistment shown is the Nov / Dec attestation date, whilst the number dates to the time that he joined his regiment. And that little factor can seriously throw out a database of accurate joining dates and their corresponding numbers.

I also offer a comprehensive, fast and cost-effective military history research service. Follow the link for more information.

Army Service Number sources

The bulk of my army service number data giving enlistment and joining dates, comes directly from service records held in the WO 363 and WO 364 series at the National Archives. These are by far the most reliable documents when it comes to ascertaining dates of attestation and later, dates of joining a particular regiment. Other sources - such as the privately published National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918 and De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour 1914-1924 - should be used with caution as the dates - where given - are often unreliable.

It is also possible to pick up enlistment dates from some Medal Index Cards (MICs) but again, caution should be exercised. The example above, appears to show that 654580 Edward Thomas Allen enlisted with the 21st London Regiment on 13th December 1915. Well he may have done, but he certainly wasn't given that number in December 1915 as numbers in this range (as I mentioned in my previous post) were not being issued until 1917.

It seems more likely that Edward Allen attested in December 1915, probably under The Derby Scheme, and was called up later. His number would have been issued to him when he joined the 21st Londons in 1917. In his case, he doesn't appear to have been with the battalion very long, before he was discharged due to sickness. Number 654714 was issued on 9th May 1917 and Edward, with a number 134 digits lower, had already been discharged from the army by 18th April that year.

Another point to note when trying to ascertain joining dates from MICs is that the regiment noted on the MIC in not always necessarily going to be the regiment that the man first joined. In Edward's case for example, it is feasible that he initially enlisted with another regiment, was numbered by it and then transferred to the 21st Londons. In some cases MICs will state that the soldier was "ex" so-and-so regiment but in many cases it will not.

So let caution be the watchword when trying to gather information from MICs: the enlistment date may be an attestation date rather than enlistment or joining date, and the regiment noted may not be the one that the man initially joined. In general, when looking at MICs I always tread warily around those with dates for November and December 1915 in particular as very many men were late Derby Scheme attestations during this time; signing up for their willingness to serve but not actually being called upon (and given army service numbers) until weeks or months later.

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