WW1 service history?

Question:

WW1 service history?

J E Farmer, City of London Yeomanry and Machine gun Corps. He volunteered Aug. 1914 and survived the war, he received 2 medals, How do I find out where he served?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Most people have no luck at all with World War One records as the answerer above has suggested. Unofrtunately, his figures are the wrong way round - about two-thirds were destroyed in the fire, and barely a third survives - so your chances are even worse than you think, but yes, you do need to be at either the National Archives in Kew, or your local Mormon Family History Centre, as they can arrange for copies to be viewed on microfilm.

The series you are after are labelled WO/363 and WO/364. Both are arranged alphabetically by surname, so if your man is there, he will be very easy to find. Check the main series WO/363 first. The second series WO/364 was reconstructed sometime after the fire mainly from pension records. Seeing as your man survived and MAY have had a pension, you may strike lucky here instead.

The best way online is to download your mans medal card from the National Archives website. They cost ⣳.50 a go, and although the inofrmation is brief, they do usually include the date he enterded into battle and where. In practice this is either the campaign on the Western front (France) or Gallipolli in Turkey. It's not usually possible to get any more specific than that, otherwise you'd need to go back to Kew and sift through the Regimental War Diaries for the units and corps in question to see where they were and what they were doing when.