Phillip J "Cook" Darch

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/massachusetts/massachusetts-ww2-nmcg...

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XQPB-47N

http://historicalsocietyofwatertownma.org/HSW/index.php?option=com_...

Philip James Darch, was born in Kilkenny, Australia, a suburb of the city Adelaide, on May 15, 1893. I was unable to determine how long he continued to live there after his birth, but according to naturalization papers filed in 1927, Darch Sr. moved to the United States in 1912. The documents show that Philip James travelled by train (most likely the Canadian Pacific Railway) from Vancouver, Canada to Sweet Grass, Montana. This meant that sometime between 1893 – 1912, he must have moved from southern Australia to Canada, although no records document this journey.

After living just five years in the United States, Philip James Darch traveled to California and joined in the Navy to fight in World War I. His enlistment documents incorrectly stated that his place of birth was in Arizona, U.S.A., which led me to believe that either Darch deliberately gave false information because his origin did not qualify him to serve or that there was some sort of clerical error in processing his papers from the Navy’s side. Either way, Darch Sr. served as Boatswain’s mate second class from 1917 to 1919, until being honorably discharged. That same year, Philip Darch Sr. married Lucy Myrtle Robinson, who was two years younger than him.