Battlefield tour of North Macedonia in search of relative from Andover

The reason I went was to visit the grave of my great-great-grandfather, Henry Albert Obadiah Loader, who fought and died in the Salonika campaign in 1918.

Despite coming from Surrey, Henry was living in Andover at the outbreak of the war with his family.

After his death, his family continued to live in the town, and many of his descendants still live in the local area to this day, which might include some people reading this article. He is also on the Andover War Memorial as Albert Loader.

The other reason why I wanted to go is because the war in Salonika has been forgotten, and even people who have a good knowledge of WWI know very little about it.

The tour I went on was organised by the Salonika Campaign Society, headed by Alan Wakefield, who runs the First World War department at the Imperial War Museum.

It is best to go on a guided tour of the battlefields due to the remoteness and politics of the region.

On the trip, there were a variety of different people. Some people were like me who had a relative who served in the Salonika campaign, while some had an interest in military history and had travelled from the USA and Canada.

Our first point of call on the trip was Karasouli Military Cemetery. This place reminded me of the famous quote from the poem The Soldier by Rupert Brooke: "If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England". 

This visit was of particular significance to me, as in this cemetery there are more than 40 men who fought alongside my great-great-grandfather in the 10th Bn. Hampshire Regiment. All of them had died at the Battle of Roche Noire, the same action that my great-great-grandfather was fatally wounded in.

Later that day we went to visit the battlefield of Roche Noire, which is on the outskirts of a rural Greek village. Visiting that place gave me goosebumps as the landscape hadn't changed much in over 100 years and we even found a piece of shrapnel that I brought back with me.

For the next part of our trip, we went to the battlefield of Doiran, which is just over the border in North Macedonia.

The terrain is very hilly, but this is where you can see first-hand evidence of the war. Bulgarian defences, trench lines, bullets, shrapnel, and barbed wire are common occurrences in the hills above Doiran.

Our local guides also reported that they had found British bodies of soldiers over the years that have never been identified and are still on the battlefields.

In the campaign, the fighting mainly took place in April/May and September/October due to the baking hot temperatures in the summer and extreme cold temperatures in the winter.

Even though it was 30 °C in late September, you could empathise with the soldiers adapting to the climate. The majority of British casualties resulted from malaria. For every 20 malaria casualties, there was one casualty resulting from enemy action.

After a couple of days in North Macedonia, we returned to Greece to visit the Doiran Memorial and Cemetery. The memorial is dedicated to the British Salonika Force and to those men who have no known grave.

Later that day, we visited Karamuldi, a Greek village that had links to the Salonika Reunion Association, the association established for veterans after the war.

In this village, the veterans had formed close ties with the locals, and in the decades after the war, right up until the 1960s, several of them continued to visit. Only around 15 people currently live in the village.

On our visit, we were treated like royalty and made to feel very welcome. As per the local custom, the full coach load of 20 people was invited into their house for hospitality.

In the days after this, we visited the Struma Valley, where a vast amount of the British Army was based throughout the Salonika Campaign.

Here, the landscape is very flat, and you can see around for miles. We also visited the Struma and Lahanas cemeteries, which are rarely visited and are in the middle of nowhere.

For the last part of our trip, we headed back to the city of Thessaloniki and to Lembet Road Cemetery, where my great-great-grandfather is buried. Here, I read out his life story to the group and laid a wreath in his honour.

This trip has opened up a can of worms for me as my great-great grandfather has inspired me to start researching to eventually write a book on his battalion the 10th Hampshire's. I suspect I will be going back many times over the coming years.

If anyone wishes to contact me to find out more about the trip or the Salonika campaign, please email christopherloader2304@gmail.com

By Christopher Loader