By roy 11 July , in Soldiers and their units. On the 30th October aged 18 Alfred enlisted as a private, number , in the Rifle Brigade. At this time the 1st battalion was at Lucknow while the 2nd were in the Sudan I can find no deployment data for the 3rd. The 4th Battalion was in Malta at this time and in moved to Egypt. The next record of Alfred George appears in the census of whilst he was serving abroad with his regiment.
He came first in a swimming competition, 50 yards in clothes and third in the half mile athletics race. These events may have taken place in the Sudan. Alfred served in the Rifle Brigade during WW1 his regimental number, as noted above, was Sadly the MOD have confirmed no records exist relating to his service due to the blitz.
The Battalion sailed from Bombay in October landing at Devonport on the 18th November then moving to Magdalen Hill camp Winchester and came under orders of 80th Brigade in the 27th Division. As regular units from the further garrisons of Empire arrived back in England, having been recalled soon after the declaration of war but many units had to wait until a Territorial unit had gone out to replace them, they were formed up into three Divisions, numbered 27th to 29th.
The 27th was formed at Magdalen hill Camp near Winchester in November-December and was soon rushed as a much-needed reinforcement to France. Shortage of some types of units were filled by Territorial units taken from other Divisions. It embarked at Southampton and landed at Le Havre on December and then moved to concentrate in the area between Aire and Arques. The Division subsequently took part in these actions:.
The Division was ordered to Salonika in November and embarkation began on 17 November. There is no evidence that Alfred went to Salonika. There is certainly no mention of this in existing records. We do know, see below, that Alfred served with the 4th, 3rd, 1st, 3rd and 3rd Battalions. From the regimental timeline I have ascertained that the 4th were engaged in the battle of St Eloi, in the Ypres area on the 15th March Thesigers mission on the night of March , , was to organize and lead the battalion in a counterattack to recapture key positions in Saint Eloi taken during a German attack several hours earlier, just before dark.
