Molloy
Specialist
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2007
- Messages
- 250
Hello all,
I thought with today being the day it is, it might be interesting and appropriate for a thread recognising friends and relatives of Forum members who have served and/or perished in previous conflicts.
I’d like to start by mentioning Gunner William Treston – a man who had he lived would have been my Great, Great Uncle. Rather amazingly, until about a fortnight ago neither I nor any members of my family were aware that we had relatives who served in the Great War – recent military experience was confined as far as we knew to both Grandfathers who served in different branches of the Irish Army during the Second World War period.
However, while working on a semester paper last month (I’m an undergraduate History student), I was browsing the online records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Out of sheer curiosity, I tried searching both my family name and my mother’s maiden name to see if any matches turned up. To my surprise, one did – Gunner Treston. From my mother’s hometown of Gort in County Galway (incidentally, the very same Gort which was the ancestral seat of the BEF’s Lord Gort), this young man was 27 and serving as a member of the Royal Field Artillery when he died at Kut - in what is now Iraq - in April 1916.
Rather sadly, despite him being a reasonably close relative, no-one in my immediate family seems to have been aware of his service or his fate. Completely by chance, I’m currently in the initial stages of joining the Irish Army Reserve, and had already opted to serve with a field artillery regiment before I learned of this.
It’s a very small thing, but I’m happy that at least belatedly the family now knows about Gunner Treston, and that someone’s thinking of him today.
Looking forward to hearing of some of your own experiences and memories.
Molloy.
I thought with today being the day it is, it might be interesting and appropriate for a thread recognising friends and relatives of Forum members who have served and/or perished in previous conflicts.
I’d like to start by mentioning Gunner William Treston – a man who had he lived would have been my Great, Great Uncle. Rather amazingly, until about a fortnight ago neither I nor any members of my family were aware that we had relatives who served in the Great War – recent military experience was confined as far as we knew to both Grandfathers who served in different branches of the Irish Army during the Second World War period.
However, while working on a semester paper last month (I’m an undergraduate History student), I was browsing the online records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Out of sheer curiosity, I tried searching both my family name and my mother’s maiden name to see if any matches turned up. To my surprise, one did – Gunner Treston. From my mother’s hometown of Gort in County Galway (incidentally, the very same Gort which was the ancestral seat of the BEF’s Lord Gort), this young man was 27 and serving as a member of the Royal Field Artillery when he died at Kut - in what is now Iraq - in April 1916.
Rather sadly, despite him being a reasonably close relative, no-one in my immediate family seems to have been aware of his service or his fate. Completely by chance, I’m currently in the initial stages of joining the Irish Army Reserve, and had already opted to serve with a field artillery regiment before I learned of this.
It’s a very small thing, but I’m happy that at least belatedly the family now knows about Gunner Treston, and that someone’s thinking of him today.
Looking forward to hearing of some of your own experiences and memories.
Molloy.
