by smitd09 » Tue Jan 18, 2011 2:28 pm
Hi Bettina
Sounds like your two great uncles shared the same experiences as my Granddad and great uncle.
My great uncle Jesse Thornett was in 1915 with the 11th in France then Salonika - Greece and was taken prisoner at the battle of Dorian in 1917. He was held throughout the rest of the war.
When interviewed in 1974 for the local paper this Boer War veteran reintegrated his reports when he got home in 1919/20 of the conditions they suffered as 'rotten'. Having read the book Under the Devils Eye - about Britain’s lost army in Salonika, 'rotten' is a gross understatement. Force-marched without food, or boots, wounded and dying left behind (some it was said 'dispatched early') their conditions were horrendous. Jess suffered with poor feet for the rest of his life after those forced marches, his boots having been taken by one of the Bulgarian enemy. Both Jess and your Great Uncle were the lucky ones.
Ernest being with the 9th would in 1915 have been in Gallipoli and most likely fought at the 'Farm' a position at the foot of a steep incline and overlooked by Turkish troops on three and a half sides. The CO of 9th Lt Col Nunn died there and is one of only a handful of marked graves at the Farm, the rest have no known grave. A beautiful spot today, I was there last April, but then one could only imagine.
19739 Pte Fredrick Harrison 4th Bat. Gallipoli 1915