Helping hand

A lot of the information about Thomas Gordon Swan was sent to Beth by Graham Sacker, a historical researcher for the Machine Gun Corps.

In his letter he said: “With regards to your great grandfather, you have been very fortunate. There is a complete set of service papers about him, which somehow survived the great fire at the War Office Repository in September 1940. I can see they have been somewhat damaged by the water used to try and douse the fire, but most of them are still perfectly readable.”

It was here he received his third and final army number.

Beth, who was helped by her dad Mike Swan, Gordon’s grandson, with her research, knows that her great-grandfather saw action from September 1917 in France and that on October 3, 1918 he was shot in the chest and he was taken to hospital.

However, as much of what the Tank Corps did was top secret, it is impossible to know where he served, which battles he took part in and where he was when he was wounded.

Beth and her dad suspect that it was during the second battle