31st Casualty Clearing Station Location -1918

[Rob Chester]

Can anyone tell me the location of 31st Casualty Clearing Station in November 1918. They were in Salonika for most of 1918 but then round about October moved to the Bulgarian front, but I am not sure where. 

 

Also, does anybody know of any published accounts from 31st CCS from this period?

 

Thanks

[Guest]

The answer to your first question should be in the relevant war diary-which should be available to view on FindMy Past:

 

No.31 casualty clearing station

This is available to download from Findmypast

Partner websites are free to search but there may be a charge to view full transcriptions and download documents. Other services may also be available.

M

Reference:	MH 106/671
Description:	No.31 casualty clearing station
Date:	1918 Oct 30-1918 Nov 21
Held by:	The National Archives, Kew
Legal status:	Public Record(s)
Closure status:	Open Document, Open Description       There are other war diaries for 31 CCS into 1919 at The National Archives. There is a good listing of the stuff on the excellent sister site "Long,Long Trail"--       Hospital admissions and discharge records – The Long, Long ... www.longlongtrail.co.uk › how-to-research-a-soldier     605, 15/12/1918, 29/03/1919, No.31 Casualty Clearing Station. British other ranks and officers; Indians, Greeks and prisoners of war. 614, 13/07/1917, 18/07/ ...

Edited 9 January , 2021 by Guest

[Rob Chester]

Thanks Voltaire66 but those are references to the medical records of individuals. I don't think any of the war diaries from the Macedonia campaign have been digitised. 

[Guest]

Point taken-  but there should be some references to where they were!!

[TEW]

They may have a location on the front cover of each book. It may however give the country rather than something precise.

TEW

[Rob Chester]

I have just found the bok for Sep 1918 but that gives no location. Hopefully the next book...

[michaelpi]

23 September at Janes

Then.....

When Dedeagatch became the base for evacuation from Bulgaria, No. 31 C.C.S., which had been at Janes, was brought there by sea from Salonika and arrived on 27th October. It sent detachments to Drama, Oxilar, Xanthi, and Gumuldjina, on the railway line between Dedeagatch and Seres, and evacuated from Dedeagatch to Salonika both by sea and rail. An improvised Bulgarian ambulance train carrying 100 patients was used on the railway, under the Xllth Corps administration. Hospital ships evacuating by sea called on their way back at Kavalla and Stavros. Attached to No. 31 CCS. at Dedeagatch were No. 9 Advanced Depot of Medical Stores and a mobile X-ray unit

 

Source, Medical History of the War

[Rob Chester]

Brilliant than you very much Michaelpi - I was getting nowhere fast with the medical record books.

 

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Rob Chester said:

Brilliant than you very much Michaelpi - I was getting nowhere fast with the medical record books.

 

 

     I think the medical records still hold a clue. =Simply because there are so many of them for every conceivable customer from  Indian civilians to Cyriot muleteers. Might I suggest that "31st CCS"  was a much larger administrative arrangement than,say, just the single (albeit large) site one might expect a la Western Front?  Perhaps a variety of wards and set-ups under one administrative roof?

     Also, Dedegatch is the old Alexandropolis and on the coast of Eastern Thrace and a good place to set up a "one stop" CCS-  I was puzzled when you mentioned that 31 CCS had ventured into Bulgaria after the 1918 armistice with the Bulgarians-puzzled as to why there were registers for navy personnel- After all, the Allied advance into Bulgaria in late 1918 has not gone down as one of the great naval campaigns of history.

    There are quite a number of British casualties in Bulgaria after the armistice (the one there) and into 1919. CWGC shows they are all buried at one of 2 places -  Plovdiv (the old Philipopolis) and Sofia.   Plovdiv had large POW camps thereabout.  Sofia is a concentration cemetery of 4 more obscure small cemeteries.  But there is a variety of regiments and neither Plovdiv nor Sofia (or its feeders from concentration) could realistically have been covered by 31 CCS for medical treatment .  In Bulgaria proper, there must have been other arrangement-or, some of the registers held in MH106 represent admin. offshoots that were actually with the troops much further into Bulgaria proper and not just around Alexandropolis.   This may help explain the multiplicity of registers.

     

[Rob Chester]

Morning,

 

You are quite right about the registers they are very interesting. I hope to get my hands on the War Diary when things return to normal and a trip to Kew is possible, combining the two sets of documents should give a very vivid picture of the work of the CCS and the wider conditions. In terms of the ownership of Dedegatch, it seems to have switched from Ottoman to Bulgarian control (after the Balkan wars) to Greek control after WWI.

As you say, this aspect of the war, indeed the whole Macedonian Campaign - seems to be one of the forgotten fronts of the Great War.

Thanks again for your help.

Rob

 

 

[Guest]

Good-ho!  My reading is that 31 CCS was based at Alexandropolis to act as a focal point for all British medical needs at that end of the Med. into the post-war months.  There were Brits and Empire personnel all over the place-  British troops in Constantinople and thereabouts (Chanak,etc),  British involvement in the Black Sea against the Soviets- and more Brits. back on Gallipoli to clear up. Alexandropolis is ideally placed to cater for all these options-as well,of course, as the Salonica Front itself, rather than have bits of CCS and stationary hospitals all over the place.  I suspect the answer as what it did will be found in "higher up" war diaries rather than any 31 CCS stuff itself.

    In addition, one of the casualties at the end of the war listed on CWGC as buried in Sofia is from 41 Stationary Hospital.  I have not found a listing of where 41 SH was during the war, the excellent Long,Long Trail website only has the locations for the Western Front. Again, as a suspicion, it looks like 41 SH was the main medical unit for those actually a long way into Bulgaria.