Alf’s Wartime History

With a lot of help from friends and family I have been able to piece together some of Alf’s movement in the First World War. I know that he was in the RAMC Territorials prior to the outbreak of war and shipped out pretty quickly once war had been declared. I have been able to ascertain from family documents that he initially left Wellington Barracks in London with the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards. The Guards were part of the 20th Brigade, 7th Division which included 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, 2nd Battalion Border Regiment and 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders. Alf at this time was part of 23 Field Ambulance which was the medical unit for that brigade. In the initial stages of the war the stalemate of trench warfare had not been reached, it was, at that time, a war of movement. He landed at Zeebrugge, Belgium on the 7th October 1914 having sailed with the Guards on the SS Victoria. From then on I have been able to trace the movement of Alf’s unit through to Ypres, their involvement in the first battle of Ypres through to January of 1915. From January 1915 he transfers to the 1st London Sanitary Section. I have not been able to find any records for this unit and therefore have been unable to trace Alf’s movement. I know that he stayed in Belgium and France until July 1916 when he was returned to England having served nearly two years at the front. So, in reality, the only movements that I can trace are those of his unit between October 1914 and January 1915. Because of this it seemed sensible to concentrate only on that period of time and as the documents for his unit and the history of the division are quite concise it enabled me to plot the route he took from Zeebrugge to Ypres and also to track the locations of his unit around Ypres.