107th Field Coy RE in Salonika campaign

[tonywing]

"Under the Devil's Eye" quotes frequently from "Three Years in the Balkans" and "Further Recollections of 107th Field Coy", both by 2/Lt M.J. Rattray of said 107th. Can anyone advise where I could access these publications, please? My interest is my grandfather. W.H. Strachan, who was a (perhaps THE) CSM of the company, having been posted to it prior to its transfer first to France and thence Salonika in 1915.

[MartinWills]

"Under the Devil's Eye" quotes frequently from "Three Years in the Balkans" and "Further Recollections of 107th Field Coy", both by 2/Lt M.J. Rattray of said 107th. Can anyone advise where I could access these publications, please? My interest is my grandfather. W.H. Strachan, who was a (perhaps THE) CSM of the company, having been posted to it prior to its transfer first to France and thence Salonika in 1915.

There should be copies available at the IWM and possibly at the British Library. The two titles you give are actually one and the same - the title page saying Further..... There is another volume which I thik is Collections and recollections of 107th Field Coy.

You may also be lucky and find copies on the second hand market - they do come up from time to time, but are never very cheap. None the less both are excellent and enjoyable reads.

The author/editor Melville J Rattray had a couple of bridges named after him in the Krusha Balkan Hills, but nothing remains of them and the side if now a very shallow ford on a rough track.

You could try an inter-library loan request.

[MartinWills]

There is a brief reference to CSM Strachan in a section called "More things we would like to know" and reads "Did CSM Strachan's watch go on wheels". It may not be the only reference, bu tthat one occurs in the first volume "Collections and recollections of 107th Field Coy" which is more of a compendium of the sort of things you might find in a unit magazine.