Private (Acting Lance-Corporal) Herbert Joseph Raven, 2nd/5th Durham Light Infantry, Salonika. Battle Honour: Macedonia

Private (Acting Lance-Corporal) Herbert Joseph Raven, 2nd/5th Durham Light Infantry, Salonika. Battle Honour: Macedonia

Herbert Joseph Raven was a commercial traveller by trade and married with three children, born in Stoke Newington in 1883 and living in Edmonton, Middlesex. He was medically examined at St Pancras on 28 June 1915 (?) and then called up for service and attested on 7 June 1916, being posted to the Army B Reserve the following day. He was aged 33 1/2 when called up. His medical grade at enlistment was retrospectively recorded on Army Form Z.22 as "B1" (whilst it is possible this may reflect his grade on demobilisation it would also be consistent with his eventual posting to a Garrison unit). 

After serving the obligatory one day with the Colours on enlistment, he was then mobilised the following month, on 7 July, and posted to 5th Durham Light Infantry the following day. From there he went on 9 July to 25th (Provisional) Battalion (formed in 1915 from Home Service personnel of Territorial units the 4th East Yorkshire Regiment and 5th DLI, and later to become 27th Battalion, DLI) before being posted on to the 2/5 DLI, a second line Territorial Battalion then based at Catterick, on 15 July. The battalion was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel P. W. Williams-Till. This sequence of posting is not untypical as the Provisional battalions were made up of a combination of existing Home Service Territorials (eg men who had not volunteered or had been found unfit for service overseas, drawn from the 2nd and 3rd line Territorial Battalions of the DLI) and new Conscripts. Part of their role was physical conditioning to render men fit for drafting overseas, working alongside units of the Training Reserve. Pte Raven was given the Service number 5142.

His home service ended on 5 November 1916 when - it having received order to proceed overseas - he was posted with 2nd/5th DLI for Salonika where it was to become a Garrison Battalion there (a class of formations not normally expected to serve in the front line due to the men's age or low medical category). On 6 November he embarked for Salonika via Southampton, Havre and Marseilles, arriving on 17 November 1916 and serving there until 7 January 1919, when he once more returned home. 

Upon arrival at Salonika, 2/5 Durham Light Infantry became headquarters troops for XVI Corps (British Salonika Force). They, along with their sister battalion, 2/9 DLI, spent the first few months of their time in Salonika on guard and road-making duties and undergoing inspections, as would be expected of a formation comprising largely of men classified, like Pte Raven, in medical category B1. In January 1917 they were encamped, presumably quite uncomfortably, in tents at Kilo 71 (K71), partway down the western slope of the Struma Valley in or near what is now the village of Kalokastro, amidst the snow. K71 was also the site of 2/3 Northumbrian Field Ambulance from September 1916, then of 40th Casualty Clearing Station until July 1918 and, with the usual melancholy logic, now hosts the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Struma Military Cemetery.

Whilst the battalion was fulfilling its garrison role, on 1 February 1917 Pte Raven was attached to No.143 Army Troops Company, Royal Engineers,  returning to his Unit on 7 March 1917. The Army Troops Companies were concerned with improving the physical infrastructure to support the army's movements and in this area were particularly concerned with roads, bridging and water supply. In April 1917 143 AT Coy was based at, or possibly moving between, K62 1/4 and K58, a little further back down the Seres Road towards Salonika, so he may not have had too far to go. There are other records of other 2/5 DLI men being attached to this unit for a time so it may not have been an uncommon occurrence. He would have received his new service number of 201576 at around this time, as part of the general renumbering of Territorial infantry units which took place in March 1917.

Meanwhile, on 1 March 1917 the battalion was moved to 228th Brigade, an independent formation within the British Salonika Force associated with 28th Division, with which 2/5 DLI would be acting as front-line troops. The brigade was moved to the front line in light of a shortage of manpower, its deployment allowing the release of one of the fighting brigades, the  83rd, for an eastward move, to the Doiran sector in preparation for the Spring offensive and the First Battle of Doiran.

The other battalions in the brigade, also Garrison Battalions, seem to have been similar in composition to the 2/5th, as per the following description by one of the 28th Division's staff officers:  "Physically the brigade was in a terrible state. They were splendid crocks ... Some were almost blind, some almost deaf, and the 22nd Rifle Brigade ... had more than sixty men over sixty years old". As a typical example of Tommy humour, it is said that because of its slow rate of marching, the 228th became known as the 'Too Too Late Brigade'.

The 2/5th Battalion served on the Butkova Front, one of the quietest parts of the battle line, holding a strong defensive position on the lower slopes of the Krusha Balkans range above the valley of the Struma. The strength of the enemy positions far across the valley combined with little enemy activity contributed to a relatively static front and no doubt held down battle casualties. In any case, the Battalion did well enough to secure Colonel Williams-Till, its officer commanding, two mentions in dispatches and a Military O.B.E., the first MiD being Gazetted on 24 July 1917.

The following is an interesting account of service with the 2nd/5th DLI from Lt Borgognon, when he joined them in the line for a brief period of service with 'D' Company, between 18 and 31 March 1918 (having been posted there by mistake for the 2nd/9th, Army Troops in Salonika):

"My first night "up the line", I spend in an old Greek house with a nice wood fire burning in the grate. Had dinner in the mess with my new Company commander (Hon H de Vere Stacpoole) [author] quite a nice chap. Next morning I took over my post in the front line together with the Platoon who were holding it .

The Bulgars were quite a safe distance away, but not too far off to send a few shells over occasionally. Here(?) the unit I joined was essentially a garrison unit and was composed of category men, men with defective vision, defective hearing, bronchial subjects, malarial wrecks etc.. These were the types of men holding the front line. It was not surprising therefore that I could go right up close to the sentries in the middle of the night without being challenged.

Fortunately, nothing serious happened.. It's true Very-lights went up from our trip wires, also grenades went off, but these were probably occasioned by stray dogs.

Talking of dogs I had a beauty come to my dugout. A large white dog more like a polar bear than a dog but he was a splendid companion and used to sleep outside my dugout every night. I often heard him growling and barking in the night whenever any of the men passed near my dugout.

By the way, my dugout was a splendid structure under a large plum tree and even in March with snow upon the ground, the tree was in full blossom. The country round this part is very prolific, grape vines are entwined round about practically every tree, pears peaches also grow in profusion.

Men forming my platoon had been out in this country for over two years, many had never been into the town of Salonica or seen a woman since they landed in the country. Their days were made up of drills, work, sentry go, outpost duty, fatigues, with football as a recreation once a week. Truly a monstrous life for a man. Lt King at the next post formed a choir, and I assisted him, singing bass. We had regular choir practice and though we had no musical instruments we got together quite a decent choir. King and I also started a concert party and were practising turns ourselves. Duets etc., also a conjuring stunt, but unfortunately before the great day for our first performance I received orders to go back to base. So our concert party fell through.

...

I have remarked previously the enemy were quite a distance away. In proof of this I might say I often wandered out, unaccompanied, in front of our wire entanglements in broad daylight in fact I often went out to burn reeds and tall growing grasses as a malaria preventative measure. It appeared that so long as we did not annoy Johnny Bulgar with shells he was content to keep quiet. Patrols went out each night towards enemy lines and on one occasion the British patrol "bumped" against a Bulgar Patrol, the British were taken prisoners, owing to the superiority of the Bulgar numbers. The next might our new Patrol found a notice written by the captured British Patrol Leader asking his C.O to send his kit down to the enemy wire and the Bulgars would send two men down to carry it to him. His C.O was to give an undertaking that the two Bulgars would not to be interfered with and the enemy would give a similar undertaking regarding the British messengers(?). The undertaking were exchanged and the kit sent down. Next night a receipt was found on the post thanking the C.O for sending kit which was safely received." Source: http://www.borgognon.net/VEBdiary.html

On 20 April 1918, Private Raven proceeded on a course at Army Signalling School, going from there to No.2 Base Depot on 26 April, rejoining his Unit in the Field on 30 April. His Army Form W.3226 describes his employment in the army as light duties signaller. This would have involved work in the Signals Section including the paying out of wire and the use of field telephones in the field, potentially in positions of some danger, and wireless telegraphy using Morse Code. On 25 July 1918 he was appointed Paid Acting Lance-Corporal. Some time after mid-August 1918 he was granted Professional Pay Class 1.

Apart from an attachment to 28th Division's 84th Infantry Brigade between 14 October 1917 and 10 March 1918, 2/5 Durham Light Infantry saw out its service in the Salonika theatre with the abovementioned 228th Brigade,  seeing active service in the field in the latter (September 1918) stages of the Salonika campaign. In particular, the battalion was in support of the Greek Crete Division during the murderous Second  Battle of Doiran, 18-19 September 1918 when the combined Anglo-Greek forces attempted but failed to take the well-built Bulgarian defences on Pip Ridge and the Grand Couronne. By the end of the war the battalion was near Lake Doiran, falling under the command of the Crete Division from 30 September 1918 until  4 October, when the brigade was broken up.

Reflecting its employment at home, as a Garrison Battalion, and then on a relatively quiescent sector of the front, 2/5 DLI is recorded as having suffered 23 fatal casualties during the Great War, the main causes of death being malaria and dysentery. Whilst in Salonika the battalion seems to have made a contribution to keeping the troops entertained with a Regimental bandmaster sufficiently skilled to make a living with his own band (drawn partly from bandmates from his DLI days) after the war. After the Armistice the battalion was engaged in Occupation duties in Bulgaria before proceeding to join the Army of the Black Sea in South Russia in February 1919. The Battalion, along with the 2/9th, received the Battle Honour "Macedonia" for its efforts.

On 19 November 1918, Lance-Corporal Raven appears to have been sent to Base for leave(?). The rest of his record (Army Form B.103) is largely illegible. His Character was given on his Conduct Sheet as "Good" and he was described as sober, [reliable] and intelligent. He embarked for home on or about 7 January 1919. 

He was medically examined prior to demobilisation on 11 January 1919 at No.1 Dispersal Unit, Wimbledon. On 8 February 1919 at York he was demobilised and transferred to the Army Z Reserve. He received the British War Medal and Victory Medal, being his full entitlement, on 12 December 1921 and was obviously proud enough of his war service to pay for the following entry in the National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918:

H.J. RAVEN 

He joined in July 1916, and in the same year was sent to Salonika, where he took part in important operations until 1918, when he was then sent into Bulgaria and Serbia. In January 1919 he was sent home and demobilised, holding the General Service and Victory Medals. 141, Croyland Road, Lower Edmonton, N. 9.