Private Savoff.. lost to history?

[tankengine888]

Hello there!
This is admittedly a very very long shot, 

When I was researching Major Thomson for my blog, I was looking for images of the 14th Battalion. I found what I needed +1 other thing..

Private Savoff, 14th Battalion

The grave of "Private Savoff, 14th Battalion". In this area, two Turks were noticed engaged in a sniping duel with one Australian. An officer who saw them came back afterwards to see the result. The Australian was shot dead through the head. He had no identity disc but in his hand was a bit of paper and on it written "Private Savoff, 14th Battalion." The officer, seen standing beside the grave, buried him. However, the identity of the dead soldier remains a mystery, since no Private Savoff served with the 14th Battalion, or indeed with the AIF.

An awkward corner near north east limit of our advance. Turks held up part of 4th Australian Infantry Brigade, here for a short time on 7 July 1915. Two Turks in particular were noticed having sniping duel with one Australian. An officer who saw them came back afterwards to see the result. The Australian was shot dead through the head. He had no identity disc but in his hand was a bit of paper and on it written "Private Savoff, 14th Battalion." The officer had him buried.

14th Battalion makes no mention as to ‘Private Savoff’ in its July 1915 War Diaries.

As he was buried, I was thinking, perhaps he is documented somewhere in the Gallipoli Burials? If not, Private Savoff will remained lost to history. 

The list of 14th Battalion men who are memorialized [no known game] from June to July 1915 are as follows
1574 Norman Samuel Block, 8th June 1915 [Buried at Sea/DoW]
177 Robert Arthur Caldwell, 6th June 1915 [Utter confusion, Missing in Action, read here]
1095 Richard Thomas Muirson, 5th June 1915 [Missing in Action]
1664 John Richard Owen, 20th June 1915 [Buried at Sea/DoW]
134 Victor Frederick Thompson, July 9th, 1915 [Buried at Sea/DoW]

Now, as you can probably all see, only Muirson seems to be the man, but it most likely isnt him [1 month apart]. Does anyone else have an idea on how it could be possible to find this man? even if it's a longshot it's worth a try!

Zidane.

[Bob Davies]

15 hours ago, tankengine888 said:

Hello there!
This is admittedly a very very long shot,

Zidane, a very interesting conundrum you have set us and I think it a worthwhile exercise for us to try and find 'Private Savoff' .

You have obviously looked and know the AIF and its various units.

Looking at the name 'Savoff' was it translated correctly by whoever found it or does it say something else? Handwriting is notoriously difficult to read at times.

The only name I can see that might fit at the moment is 'Parott' or 'Parrott'. A quick search gave me 288 Private Lionel Eric Parrott. 16th Infantry Brigade. EDIT HERE; 16 Infantry Battalion.  KIA 2nd May 1915 No known Grave.

Link;https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/252364

1. Yes the unit is wrong, where were the 16th in relation to the 14th on the battle field?

2. Date is wrong.

I thought to make a start with these suggestions.

Regards, Bob.

Edited 7 May , 2023 by Bob Davies

[tankengine888]

5 hours ago, Bob Davies said:

Zidane, a very interesting conundrum you have set us and I think it a worthwhile exercise for us to try and find 'Private Savoff' .

You have obviously looked and know the AIF and its various units.

Looking at the name 'Savoff' was it translated correctly by whoever found it or does it say something else? Handwriting is notoriously difficult to read at times.

The only name I can see that might fit at the moment is 'Parott' or 'Parrott'. A quick search gave me 288 Private Lionel Eric Parrott. 16th Infantry Brigade. KIA 2nd May 1915 No known Grave.

Link;https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/252364

1. Yes the unit is wrong, where were the 16th in relation to the 14th on the battle field?

2. Date is wrong.

I thought to make a start with these suggestions.

Regards, Bob.

First off, 16th Battalion is 4th Brigade (from battalions 12-16).. I'll have to check the war diaries as it states it was the 'north east limit of the advance'.. 

Good thinking on the wrong interpretation..thing is, all there is that is concrete is

1) Killed in a sniping duel (buried shortly after)

2) identified by paper with writing 'Private Savoff, 14th Battalion'

I'm not too sure if 7th July is the date of the sniping duel.. it states it was for the 4th Brigade, but not sure if that means for the death of Savoff.

Zidane 

P.S what if Savoff is a hyphenated surname that the soldier didn't use?

 

Edited 7 May , 2023 by tankengine888

[Bob Davies]

5 hours ago, tankengine888 said:

First off, 16th Battalion is 4th Brigade (from battalions 12-16).. I'll have to check the war diaries as it states it was the 'north east limit of the advance'.. 

Good thinking on the wrong interpretation..thing is, all there is that is concrete is

1) Killed in a sniping duel (buried shortly after)

2) identified by paper with writing 'Private Savoff, 14th Battalion'

I'm not too sure if 7th July is the date of the sniping duel.. it states it was for the 4th Brigade, but not sure if that means for the death of Savoff.

Zidane 

P.S what if Savoff is a hyphenated surname that the soldier didn't use?

 

A  google search of the word 'Savoff' comes up with a place in Ontario,Canada and the name of a Bulgarian General.

Supposedly it is a surname used in Australia.  Link; https://forebears.io/surnames/savoff#similar

Yes a 'hyphenated surname' as you suggest or a 'nickname'?

There seems to be a few ways of spelling the name, does any of them come close to a AIF soldier or even a sailor. Strange things happen so perhaps a sailor who was a good shot came ashore to test his skill and luck?

Bob. 

Edit;

Here is a mention of the Bulgarian General in a newspaper. Is our mystery Private having a joke? https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59409572

Edited 7 May , 2023 by Bob Davies

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Can't see any Savoffs in the AIF.
The NAA only list 2 or 3 instances of the surname during the Great War era. They seem to be records of immigration/naturalization.

Searched for AIF men with surnames "Sav*".
All were British surnames with the exception of Arthur Savolainan, born in 'Finland, Russia', who was killed in 1916 in France.
Wrong name, wrong date, wrong continent, otherwise it's the best I can do.

The dead soldier can't possibly be Savoff.
Did the AIF not issue dog-tags to their men?

[Bob Davies]

3 hours ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

Can't see any Savoffs in the AIF.
The NAA only list 2 or 3 instances of the surname during the Great War era. They seem to be records of immigration/naturalization.

Searched for AIF men with surnames "Sav*".
All were British surnames with the exception of Arthur Savolainan, born in 'Finland, Russia', who was killed in 1916 in France.
Wrong name, wrong date, wrong continent, otherwise it's the best I can do.

The dead soldier can't possibly be Savoff.
Did the AIF not issue dog-tags to their men?

Dia,

are we looking for a soldier who lived in Savoff?

The reason I ask and put this idea forward is Zadines suggestion of a 'hyphenated' name and you and I having  a connection to Wales.

Who do you, or would you call John Jones who lives on the farm called Savoff?

I would call him John Jones Savoff.

Or Jones Savoff,

or John Savoff.

So is our Private Savoff 14th Battalion a Canadian man who went to Australia, joined up and soon became known as ,Private Savoff'

as he had a very common name and to differentiate him from the rest of the Smiths, Jones etc or whatever his name was?

So to all who knew him and that was his immediate circle who he would expect to be with him and know who he was.

I found a Canadian from Ontario whos name is Pringle. Not that common a name but you hopefully get my drift?

Here he is, all dates etc are wrong but there we go a work in progress and it might spring someones mind into light.

2069 Pte Pringle Thornburn 13th Battalion. KIA 27-8-1915. Link;https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/search-results/?Surname=+Pringle+&Forename=Thornburn+&Initials=&ServiceNum=2069&Regiment=&WarSelect=1&CountryCommemoratedIn=null&Cemetery=&Unit=&Rank=&SecondaryRegiment=&SecondaryUnit=&AgeOfDeath=0&DateDeathFromDay=1&DateDeathFromMonth=January&DateDeathFromYear=&DateDeathToDay=1&DateDeathToMonth=January&DateDeathToYear=&DateOfDeath=&Honours=null&AdditionalInfo=

There were a number say 20 or so men on the Lone PIne memorial who have Aliases. It was none of these that made any immediate sense.

[tankengine888]

Looking at casualties prior to July 7th, I saw a 4th Brigade man; 1663 Private Charles Edward Plumley, 15th Battalion [Pictured on right]. He was killed on Gallipoli on July 5th, 1915 at the age of 24, body was not recovered. Particulars concerning how and when he died is not currently available and the 15th Battalion War Diary just states a sentence involving Picquet duty.. I'm pretty sure he was Missing in Action, mainly due to the fact that a court had to decide whether or not he was deceased.. 

The closest 14th Battalion Casualty would be Lance Corporal Victor Frederick Thompson, Died of Wounds on July 9th; buried at sea, therefore it could not be him.

6 hours ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

Did the AIF not issue dog-tags to their men?

They did, our soldier didn't have any identification on him except for a piece of paper with 'Private Savoff, 14th Battalion'

I would like to suggest more ideas, and I just want to see which ones are shot down
1) British Soldier? [Not sure if Battalion numerals for the British went that high; did they even serve nearby?]
2) Date of Death for our soldier could possibly be too far back [i.e 'between 29th June - 10th July' though, wide gap]
3) What if he didn't even die in July? What if it was in August or June? The wording confuses me a bit.. as in, the dates.

Zidane.

[aconnolly]

Based on Lone Pine Memorial for deaths on 7th -8th July in an Australian unit and with no known grave there are only 7 names and all were buried at sea.

For those with known grave, there are nine Australians died on 7/8 July but seems highly unlikely one of them was subsequently identified as the "real Savoff"

This may well mean as noted by Zidane that the date is wrong.  To still have a piece of paper in his hand would broadly mean no/minimal decomposition therefore trying to identify the action described by Major Thompson might be a way forward?

The other odd thing is why would the deceased have his own name written on a bit of paper?  Perhaps he had written down someone else's name hence why 14th Batt may be a distraction?

Andrew

 

 

 

 

[tankengine888]

Major Thompson didn't describe the action; it was by CEW Bean I believe, the photographs were taken by him anyways.

It does seem certainly odd to have the piece of paper in his hand wouldn't it? Ah, the lovely confusion.

[aconnolly]

Ah - ok .  Bean unlikely to be significantly wrong with dates I presume?

 

[tankengine888]

1 hour ago, aconnolly said:

Ah - ok .  Bean unlikely to be significantly wrong with dates I presume?

Well, this is what is written
..Turks held up part of 4th Australian Infantry Brigade, here for a short time on 7 July 1915. Two Turks in particular were noticed having sniping duel with one Australian..

I was thinking whether or not the 7th July is when the sniping duel took place; if it didn't, it'll be near impossible to identify Savoff.

Edited 8 May , 2023 by tankengine888

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

There used to be a brilliant bit of the NAA called 'Discovering Anzacs'.
Unfortunately, that site has been decommissioned, but when active, showed a map of the globe with every ANZAC's place of birth labelled on it. (Where that was stated on the attestation form).

It could for example, have listed all Canadian born Anzacs.

I've tried the Wayback Machine, and although it brings up the site, and the map pins, the map itself is missing.
Oh well.

https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/
https://archive.org/web/

 

[DavidOwen]

I have trawled FMPs world records for Savoff, Avoff and Voff but cannot find anyone suitable. The majority of the former are linked to USA.

Is it not likely the paper in the hand was for a message or the name of someone the soldier to meet rather than the man himself? Other than colleagues placing it there and why would they rather than bury him themselves I am struggling to see the reason for it being there.

[Bob Davies]

42 minutes ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

There used to be a brilliant bit of the NAA called 'Discovering Anzacs'.
Unfortunately, that site has been decommissioned, but when active, showed a map of the globe with every ANZAC's place of birth labelled on it. (Where that was stated on the attestation form).

It could for example, have listed all Canadian born Anzacs.

I've tried the Wayback Machine, and although it brings up the site, and the map pins, the map itself is missing.
Oh well.

https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/
https://archive.org/web/

 

Thank you for the suggestion Dai, I have 27 listed as 'POB Ontario' , going through them now and later.

Type in;  POB Ontario   into the search here;https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/SearchScreens/BasicSearch.aspx

[Bob Davies]

After a further search of 'place of birth Ontario' another 16 came up but alas non of the first 27 or this 16 turned up anything.

A search of 'POB Bulgaria' and 'place of birth Bulgaria' turned up one man;

524 James Markoff Todoroff. 12th Battalion. 3rd Brigade.

He survived the war but then dissapeared.

There are 488 'place of birth Russia' to look through yet. They have names ending in 'off'

EDIT here; Out of the 598 'Russians' only one comes anywhere near to who we need, he is;

2208 John Volkoff 15th Battalion AIF.

KIA.   8-8-1915

Commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial.

I doubt that it is him, as even the most scrawly handwriting can't make 'Savoff' from 'Volkoff'

Edited 8 May , 2023 by Bob Davies
To add John Volkoff.

[tankengine888]

Brilliant work, but I wonder if it will all be in vain.. the chances we find Savoff as extremely ***
The only thing I can suggest is whether or not the 2 f's might be Savoh instead of Savoff, but I doubt it. The '14th Battalion' seems a redherring at this point.

Zidane.