Great Uncle Edward Clark

[kelly]

Hi all forum and Salonika enthusiasts,

I decided to have a look at the Salonika Campaign as a matter of interest and am amazed at the amount of information and interest to be found from all forum members. My great uncle private Edward Clark (3/6501 or 225101) East Yorkshire Regiment entered this theatre around 5/10/15 and thats all I know. Would really love to know more of his movements any action he may have seen etc, can anyone recomend a good book giving an overview to include those that led, any help would be useful I'm even considering a visit.

Garry

[Rockdoc]

Garry, there are three books I'd recommend but none is likely to give you great detail on your man's service and experience:

1. Under The Devil's Eye (Alan Wakefield & Simon Moody) - this is the story of the British Salonika Army told mainly in the words of men who served there.
   
2. The Gardeners Of Salonika (Alan Palmer) - a much broader work than UTDE that covers much more about the tensions and interactions between the various nations on the Entente side. It works very well in conjunction with UTDE.
   
3. Balkan Breakthrough (Richard C Hall) - the story of the Bulgarian Army. A very useful book for completing the picture from the other side of the wire.
   

2/East Yorkshires were part of 83rd Brigade, 28th Division, XVI Corps and served much of their time after April 1916 on the Struma Front. The Long Long Trail will give you some basic info on the Battalion and higher organisations and give you a start. If he arrived in October 1915 then he was one of the first to get there and would almost certainly have been involved in building the Birdcage Line.

I firmly believe that this isn't a war theatre you can easily do on your own. You could but you'd miss a lot. The Salonika Campaign Society does tours, as do others, and we had a great time on an SCS one last year, led by Alan Wakefield. Until you've seen the lie of the land you really cannot understand what you read. My "diary" of the trip is on-line HERE.

Keith

[kelly]

Hi Keith,

Many thanks for the up-date, as you said if and when I go I'll use a tour company what time of year did you go.

Regards

Garry

[awakefield]

Hi Garry

My tour groups usually go out to the Salonika battlefields in either early May or late September. The former date fits in with an excellent Turkish cultural festival in the village of Calikli on the edge of the Kosturino battlefield, whilst the latter ties in with the official ceremonies of commemoriation during the last weekend of Sept. For 2013 the tour is planned for September. We also hope to run a week of battlefield archaeology (inc volunteer diggers) that month - either just before the tour or earlier in the month (all depends on availability of the archaeological team).

ALAN