Army Form B103

Though hard to read in places, this example shows how useful B103 is for tracing the movements of a soldier. You can find it among surviving First World War service records on Ancestry and Findmypast

2018-10-23 -

1 Personal Details

This includes the soldier’s name, regimental number and age on enlistment.

2 Date And Place Embarked

This includes the date he arrived overseas, plus the unit (26 Section, Heavy Artillery Motor Transport, attached 121 Siege Battery).

3 Dates Of Moves To Other Units

This column is usually in chronological order, so our soldier went from 121 Siege Battery to 272 Company then 402 Company etc.

4 Acronyms

Military forms are full of acronyms. Here “14th CSAP” stands for 14th Corps Siege Artillery Park.

5 P.T.O.

Side two of the form has nearly a dozen other moves before discharge in 1919!