Berthold Wiesner

[Mike Cecil]

Tony,

Very interesting background, thanks for that.

I'm certain we will never actually know what happened to Berthold other than he went missing at sea. The inquiry simply concluded that he voluntarily went overboard in state of despondency - the conclusion appearing to be more from a lack of any real evidence to the contrary.

Corinthic was in use for that voyage as a hospital transport, rather than a hospital ship, so the patients were all classed as low-level medical cases capable of looking after themselves with minimal medical assistance. That's why there were only 34 medical staff aboard for a total of 1160-odd patients.

Berthold's wounds were shrapnel to hand and thigh, with the thigh wound considered 'slight'. He also appears to have contracted hepatitis, and this appears to be the main reason he was RTA and not held until recovery and returned to unit.

Mike

[Mike K]

Sadly, events like that were not uncommon. I recall the case of a small ship packed with returning WW1 troops, they had made it back to their home port, a small coastal village in Scotland from memory.

The vessel was caught in bad weather , and being night time chaos ensued, the vessel foundered . Many of the troops drowned right in front of their home town.

Another WW1 case where two or three troop trains collided in the Nth of England . Hundreds died . The carriages had gas bottles beneath to power the gas lit carriages , plus the wooden carriages , it all went up like a fireball. The court of inquiry blamed the signal operators who were jailed for years. But modern day methods have revealed, the cause of it all, was actually the railway companies themselves, they overloaded the system way beyond its designed specs.

PS found this: it was sailors not soldiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Iolaire

and then the train disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinti..._rail_disaster

[Mike Cecil]

After placing the evidence before the AWM Roll of Honour (ROH) curators, Berthold's place of death has now been corrected on the on-line ROH.

A good result, I think.

Mike