The aim of the Society is to perpetuate the memory of those of all nations who served, whether they were members of the armed forces, medical services or civilian staff. The Society does not seek to glorify war and is neither politically nor commercially motivated.
Many of you will be familiar with ‘Away from the Western Front’ (AFTWF), which was a First World War centenary project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and was supported by the expertise of the Salonika Campaign Society. Salonika featured as a campaign in several of the AFTWF sub-projects including their work with homeless veterans and the Sandham Memorial Chapel and also Castle Drogo where one of their stonemasons, Pte WG Arscott, fought and died in Salonika with the 10th (Service) Battalion, Devonshire Regiment. Continue reading “Away from the Western Front and the ‘Turin men’”
As I sit writing this over Easter, the world is in the grip of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. I hope you and your families are keeping well and that you are getting used to the social and commercial lock-down that is currently in place. Like many of you, I’ve been working from home since mid-March and coming to terms with only seeing work colleagues, friends and family online. Thankfully we live in an age of remarkable communications technology enabling us to maintain instant contact across the globe from our living rooms. One can only imagine what the men and women of the BSF would have given for anything approaching this level of modern comms.
If you followed the romantic, if brief and one-sided, postcard correspondence between Jack and Miss M. Hards in Bakewell you may, like me, have wondered what became of them. I’m pleased to say that there may have been a happy ending.
We have been contacted by Phil, a volunteer on the Imperial War Museum’s War Memorials Register Project. They have a record of a memorial plaque that was placed in St John’s Church, Hanley, Staffordshire by the Salonika Reunion Association in memory of those who served and died in Salonika.
The church is now an antiques centre and Phil has spoken to the owner who has confirmed that the plaque is no longer there. He said that a number of plaques were removed during the period when the church was closed.
A quick search of The Mosquito – the publication of the SRA – has not revealed any mention of the church, the plaque or any dedication ceremony, so it remains a mystery. Does anyone out there know anything about the plaque? Please contact us if you do and we will pass the information onto Phil.
The Doiran Memorial serves the dual purpose of a Battle Memorial of the British Salonika Force (for which a large sum of money was subscribed by the officers and men of that force), and a place of commemoration for more than 2,000 Commonwealth servicemen who died in Macedonia and whose graves are not known. The memorial was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer with sculpture by Walter Gilbert. It was unveiled by Sir George Macdonogh on 25 September 1926. It stands on Colonial Hill in northern Greece, overlooking the lake and town of Dojran in Northern Macedonia. Photo by the editor, March 2016.
I recently bought a set of five postcards sent from Salonika. This was not really for the images – although they are attractive – as I already own some of them. The attraction was that, after more than one hundred years, the group has stayed together and capture a brief correspondence between a member of the BSF and a young lady in England. They won’t add any particular insight into the campaign, but it’s nice to be able to remember them, even though the sender is only identified as ‘Jack’. Continue reading “7th January 1918 : Dear M …”
My thanks again go to Simon and Christine Briggs for kindly sharing with us John Staple’s photographs from Salonika, Egypt and Turkey and for taking the trouble to photograph his interesting collection of ‘trench art’ souvenirs. These photos are reproduced below with notes from Simon. Continue reading “John Staple’s Souvenirs of the War in the East”
Salonika Campaign Society, 1915-1918 