Irish Guards - World War One
Hand embroidered Postcard, and Irish
Guards Pass |
Irish Guards |
Michael L Woulfe (Jnr) writes from Florida,U.S.A :
"I thought you might be
interested in some WWI Irish Guards bits associated
with my Grandfather,
Michael Leo Woulfe No.14524
As far as we can tell he joined the British
Army first and then went into
the Irish Guards. He may have had two service
numbers, because we believe he joined at
the age of 14 in 1917 and was found
out. He apparently rejoined a short time later.
We have letters and
documents dated 1918 through 1920 in his name and in his
brother John's name
which he apparently used early on."
The photo of
Grandfather Michael was creased, and badly stained, so did a bit of retouching
here and there and then wrote to ask for approval of my efforts. Here is the
reply from Michael junior :
You did a great job of cleaning up the picture. I did similar surgery when I used the picture on my homepage.
I thought you might prefer the original picture.Yes, you may certainly use the information I sent you, and edit if you wish for clarity.
Since any of his mates would also be about 100 years old now, I doubt we'll hear from many. The Guards were very gracious in providing us with copies of his service documents. They solved some of the mysteries, but they don't clearly indicate his dates of joining up. Sadly, I don't know where he served in Europe. My brother and I both remember him showing us an ugly, ancient scar on his arm where he says a bullet passed through. You can read more about his history if you'd like, by checking out my website on the Woulfe family..."
I took a look, and found the
family site very interesting, and you will too, especially if you're
Irish
Click on: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mwoulfe