14th kings Liverpool Regiment

[ss002d6252]

My Great Uncle served with the 14th Kings Liverpool Regiment in Salonika from 9 Nov 1916 to 11 Apr 1917. He caught malaria and it seems this is why he was posted back home in 1917.

Does anyone have any information regarding the battalion in Salonika and what they did ? I tried LLT but it doesn't seem to confirm which division the bn served with.

[AlanCurragh]

From the LLT

14th (Service) Battalion

Formed at Seaforth in October 1914 as part of K3 and attached to 65th Brigade, 22nd Division.

5 September 1915 : landed at Boulogne.

Moved to Salonika in November 1915.

Left Division and moved to France in June 1918.

23 July 1918 : attached to 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division.

13 August 1918 : absorbed by 18th Battalion.

So 22nd Division, I think

Alan

[ss002d6252]

Thanks - I looked at the 22nd Division page earlier and searched the page but for some reason it missed the bn on their.

Judging by the details shown he may have been lucky and missed the major battles that the division was involved in.

[Rockdoc]

The Struma Valley was a malaria hot-spot. The area around Lake Tahinos was very marshy.

Keith

[redjed1]

Hi, this is what I have on my wife's grandfather, who was in the 14th Kings. He was about 35yrs old when he died, and left a widow with 5 children and another on the way.

WW1 - Private J Hayes 48477

14th Btn Kings (Liverpool Regiment)

died after the battle of Doiran against the Bulgarian army

17 July 1917 Salonika.

He was in the 14th Battalion of the Kings (Liverpool), which was attached to the 22nd Division of the army (see www.1914-1918.net/22div.htm).

He died on 17/7/1917, which was just after the battle of Doiran in present-day Macedonia. The 22nd Division was one of three British divisions used in the attack against the Bulgarian army. See "wapedia.mobi/en/Battle_of_Doiran_(1917)" for a Bulgarian (?) account of the battle. The account says the battles lasted from late April until about 9th May and resulted in heavy casualties on our side. As he died in mid-July, I can only think that either he was wounded and later died either from his wounds or from disease (malaria was prevalent).

I also found this account of the battle -

The real work of the assault was entrusted to the men of the 22nd and 26th Divisions, who were to attack the Doiran hills, co-operating with the Cretan Division of the Greek Army and a regiment of unreliable Zouaves. In the early light of an almost unclouded morning the British and Greek forces advanced in order of battle. The noise of our guns had abruptly ceased before daybreak, and there came that awful pause in which defenders and attackers are braced up to face the ordeal, with fear or desperation, with cool courage or with blazing ardour. Slowly the pale grey smoke lifted in layers of thin film above the ridges, blue shadows deep in every fold or hollow and a dim golden glow on scrub, rock and heather. No one could tell what had been the effect of our gunfire upon those fortified hills.

The infantry soldier relies upon the guns behind him, trusting in their power to smash a way for his advance by killing or demoralizing the enemy and cutting up his defences. In this case, if he had any hopes or illusions, the infantry soldier was quickly un-deceived. Our attack on ' Pip Ridge' was led by 12th Cheshires. The battle opened with a crash of machine-gun fire, and a cloud of dusty smoke began to blur the outline of the hills, Almost immediately the advancing battalion was overwhelmed in a deadly steam of bullets which came whipping and whistling down the open slopes. Those who survived were followed by a battalion of Lancashire men, and a remnant of this undaunted infantry fought its way over the first and second lines of trenches - if indeed the term " line " can be applied to a highly complicated and irregular system of defence, taking full advantage of every fold or contortion of the ground. In its turn, a Shropshire battalion ascended the fatal ridge. By this time the battle of the " Pips" was a mere confusion of massacre, noise and futile bravery. Nearly all the men of the first two battalions were lying dead or wounded on the hillside. Colonel Clegg and Colonel Bishop were killed; the few surviving troops were toiling and fighting in what appeared to be inevitable and immediate death. The attack was ending in a bloody disaster. No orders could reach the isolated cluster of men who were still trying to advance on the ridge. Contact aeroplanes came roaring down through the yellow haze of dust and smoke, hardly able to see what was going on, and even flying below the levels of the Ridge and Grand Couronne.

He is buried at SARIGOL MILITARY CEMETERY, KRISTON.

From April to June 1917, the 35th Casualty Clearing Station was at Sarigol. It was replaced by the 21st Stationary Hospital, which remained until December 1918. From these two hospitals, 150 burials were made in the cemetery, many of them men who had been wounded in the Allied attack on the Grand-Couronne and Pip Ridge in April-May 1917, and September 1918. In February 1921, 560 graves were brought into Sarigol from Janes Military Cemetery, a few miles to the north, and serving the same front. The cemetery at Janes was on low ground, and, under the normal conditions of this region, it was found difficult to approach and almost impossible to maintain in good order. With a few exceptions, the burials were made from 31st Casualty Clearing Station between August 1916 and October 1918. Sarigol Military Cemetery now contains 682 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 29 war graves of other nationalities.

Sarigol Military Cemetery is 3 kilometres out of Kristoni village, some 40 kilometres north of Thessaloniki, in the direction of Kilkis town. The cemetery is close to the civil cemetery and set in farmland.

John