Oliver William BOWDLER, 13th Batt. Gloucester Regt (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, May 23, 2014, 18:53 (3839 days ago) @ JaneyH

Thanks very much for your update Janey, you're not the only one looking forward with interest to the release of Oliver's records. Your comments have been very helpfull too;

Wrt the War Diary being available to download from TNA, it's great that you included the specific WO (War Office) Reference. I say this as I've just received the monthly "WDYTYA" email newsletter, which proudly states "the third batch of WW1 diaries has gone online"
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/weekly-round-new-batch-ww1-unit-diaries...

I clicked this link hoping it would give a list of what units were now online, but to my surprise there wasn't that I could find, disappointing. I then searched WO 95 for "Gloucestershire" to see which of the Regiment's Diaries were online, but despite other Battalion's being found, to my surprise I couldn't find the 13th ?!. This was despite searching in various ways as per my previous experience of the TNA search engine. However thanks to you, searching specifically for "WO 95/2577/1" took me straight to it, all very odd...
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/s/res?_q=WO%2095%2F2577%2F1

Please though don't forget that the 13th Battn Diary is already transcribed within this FoD site.
http://forest-of-dean.net/index.php/miscellaneous-documents

Wrt your comment abt the Western Front Organisation, thanks for reminding me that this is the only way to access these Pension Records, not the MoD anymore, and not from TNA or any online source. I also appreciated your helpfull post on the aforementioned "WDYTYA" site forum, clarifying the WFO only have access to the records just twice a month, hence the long leadtime.
http://westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-current-news/pension-records.html

Thanks again for your kindly help to us all.