19th century military men

One of my fellow POLLARD descendants (hi Clive!) alerted me to the WO25 military records series in which some of our Pollards are lurking. Along with George and Andrew I found a few other men from Wing recorded in there, and they have now been added to the 19th century military page. If you have ABBOTT, BATES, CLARK, HUBBARD, JAPP, JENNINGS, JORDAN or POLLARD in your tree from Wing in the early 19th century that should please you. There's always more to find out there!

I've also found a couple more WW1 servicemen as I continue on my WW1 project, but I won't be updating the website for them until a bit later on.

Crying over spilt milk

I guess it's more blood than milk though - I've been going through the WO363 War Office records reading the WWI records of some of the Wing men. As with other records, there's always a sense of amazement that the records survive at all so you can learn these intimate snippets about someone's life. Some things that brought a tear to the eye:

Thomas CAPP, so keen to do his bit he'd signed up during the Boer War, then later done some Territorial service, then signed up again in WW1, spending 9 months in France even though he was 49 at the time.

Horace John CLARK, a driver with the Royal Engineers who was disciplined after being so tired at the end of one day he had neglected to clean his harness (and then lied to his commanding officer about it)

The letter from Esther BANDY requesting that the medals awarded to her late son Albert BANDY be publicly presented to her.

It is a shame that loss of life from such conflicts continues today. My condolences to the families of the two RAF men who were killed serving in Afghanistan a few days ago, and perhaps we should honour the dead by urging the powers-that-be to ensure that everything possible is being done to minimise the risk of injury to those who serve.