What did John Rust do in the First World War?
Q
My grandad, John Rust, served in France during the First World War, but I cannot find any records for him. He signed up when he was 16, but said he was 18. I don’t know his regiment, just that he would bring supplies to the front line.
He was living in Whittingham, Staffordshire, when he signed up, and was born c1899 at Dosthill, Warwick. Vanessa Rust
A
There are certainly no soldier’s service records for John Rust, although about 60 per cent of them were destroyed during the Second World War.
The link with supplies suggests he was in the Army Service Corps (ASC) or Army Ordnance Corps (AOC). The first supplied food and fuel in vast quantities, having huge depots that sent convoys close to the front. The second did the same with weapons, uniforms and equipment. From just behind the line, these were distributed by divisional troops to the men in the trenches.
I’ve looked for Medal Index Cards for John Rust in each corps. Searching The National Archives’ well-indexed collection ( tinyurl. com/tna-discovery-mics) produces just one AOC soldier, John Rust, acting corporal, but says he’d previously served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The ASC offers two more likely candidates: John Rush, driver, regimental number T/37840; and John Rust, private, DM2/195126. On Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk), I found all three men’s cards and also their medal rolls, which can be downloaded. Sometimes the rolls tell us which ASC or AOC companies they served in, but not here unfortunately.
Given he enlisted underage, your man must be John Rush, T/37840. He received the 1914/15 Star for going to France in December 1915, the ‘T’ indicates he was in Horse Transport. He would’ve been 16 in May 1915, giving enough time to train him.
Phil Tomaselli