By Andy Dewar 11 April , in Soldiers and their units. I am trying to find out about my grandfather's war service, but I know absolutely nothing about it. He didn't mention it at all, but after he died one of my uncles told me he had been in Palestine at the end of the war. My sister says there's a 'rumour' that he was in the Dardanelles. His name - to me - was Jack Holt, but in early life - probably the time he was in the army - he was Jack Holtz and sometimes Jack Kaufman Holtz.
He was born Kaufman Holtz in Sunderland on February 4 On the census he is Kaufman Holtz living in Sunderland, Durham.
His parents are Abraham and Rachael. I have found this one document on Find My Past which could well be him, being treated for shock. But I can't read what regiment he is in and I can't find anything using that regiment number.
Can anybody please help with the regiment or suggest a way forward? It says entrained at Coulommiers which is near Paris and detrained at Vichy. The dates would fit in with the actions south of Soissons. His parents are in Newcastle in with his two sisters but he is not with them. Their place of birth is shown as Poland Russia Nationality Russian.
The eldest daughter was born in Spitalfields and that fits as the highest number of immigrants in London before the war were Russian. The second sister was born in North Shields. Kofman or Jack, born in would have come within the ambit of the Military Service Act on attaining the age of eighteen. This precludes service in the Dardanelles Campaign in unless he enlisted under age. The most likely unit, although he was British, would be the 'enemy alien' battalions of the Middlesex Regiment.
