Any information gratefully received....

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

My grandfather (356307 Private William Thornton, 1st/9th Hampshires) is playing the clarinet in the first picture. I believe that the Hampshires were in Vladivostock when this picture was taken. They were about to entrain to go to Omsk and I think it was December 1918.



I also have this postcard which he brought back. He has written on the back Ekaterinburg, East Russia, house where Czar Nicholis [sic] was assassinated



I believe he returned home in November 1919. The reason for this post is, can anyone refer me to a book with more detailed information on what happend to this battalion from December 1918 until they returned home? Or any other information you BoB experts have?

[Aaron]

I could swear I had once stumbled across a history of the Hampshire regiment in Russia on Archive.org, but I'll be damned if I can find it now. I did find these books on other aspects of the allied intervention.

"The evacuation of north Russia, 1919" (1920) from the War office http://archive.org/details/armyevacuationof00greauoft

"Fighting without a war; an account of military intervention in north Russia" (1920) by Ralph Albertson http://archive.org/details/fightingwithoutw00albe

"The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919" by Joel Moore http://archive.org/details/thehistoryofthea22523gut

"Russia in revolution; being the experiences of an Englishman in Petrograd during the upheaval" (1917) by Stinton Jones http://archive.org/details/russiainrevolut00jone

"A prisoner of the Reds, the story of a British officer captured in Siberia" (1921)by Francis Mcullagh, a captain in the Irish Fusiliers http://archive.org/details/prisonerofredsst00mccuuoft


No help at all, really, but a couple of them might be interesting. Good luck in your search!

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Thanks, Aaron. That's a good start.

[Mark Plant]

"With the Die Hards" is the Middlesex Regiment. It does mention the 1/9th Hampshires a couple of times.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10972/10972-h/10972-h.htm

It confirms that the Hampshires went west in early 1919.

In terms of "what happened" -- very little. Watched the Whites behave very badly and the Kolchak regime disintegrate. They didn't fight any conventional battles, so don't expect very much of interest.

Surely the regimental records are available in Britain?

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Thanks, Mark, everything helps.

Yes, the Royal Hampshires Museum at Winchester holds copies of the World War I War Diaries for all Battalions, copies of the four volumes of Regimental History and of the First World War Medal Rolls, so I will make a visit there as well.