249953 Pte. Henry Edmund Andrews British Army 1/8th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment from:Worcester The 8th Battalion was a Territorial Force unit of part-time soldiers. They had joined the Army on home defence terms of engagement which meant they could not be sent for service overseas. The Battalion was at its annual summer camp in Minehead when war was declared. The CO invited men to volunteer for immediate service overseas. Those that did became the 1/8th Battalion those that didn't became the 2/8th Battalion. Harry Andrews joined the 1/8th Battalion and went out to France in March 1915.
The large expansion of the Army meant that by 1917 the service numbering system was a mess because each unit was responsible for its own numbers, so across the army as a whole many soldiers could have the same service number. Therefore, the army centralised service numbers for the Territorial Force units, renumbered serving troops and issued blocks of numbers for future recruits to each unit. The new numbers were all six-digit and he was re-numbered from 3336 to 240986 as shown in the Absent Voters List, 1917 Casualty List and in the Machine Gun Corp register.
Harry was reported wounded on the 27th. October, 1917 in the War Office Weekly Casualty List dated 30th. October, 1917.
After being wounded in 1917 he transferred to the Machine Gun Corps (probably early in 1918) and was given another number of 162036 and returned to active service. Again either here or some point prior he changed his name usage to Harry rather than Henry.
According to the MGC Roll he was demobilised on 10th of January 1919. What became of him after this date is not known.
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