British Saborique Forces

[slogger]

My Great Uncle,

John Wardlaw Pte 1799 2nd/1st Northumbrian Field Ambulance RAMC

survived WW1. Have recently been given a photograph of him in uniform. Cannot post here due to incompatible scanner.

Written on the back is his name and,

"British Saborique Forces" or it could be "British Sabonque Forces".

 Having googled in vain, can anyone tell me more about these forces?

My neighbour a former soldier, pointed out that Uncle John has crossed rifles on his left uniform sleeve which signifies a marksman (is that a sniper?) having looked about the RAMC site, it seems they did not carry weapons.

Could he have transferred from one division to another? My son who`s interest is WW1 told me that men often did extra courses as they received an albeit paltry pay rise.

His mic card is pretty uninformative but i do find these difficult to interprete.
Any thoughts?

[LJReb123]

Hi,

could it be 'Salonika'?

David

[apwright]

Almost certainly 'Salonique', meaning Salonika/Salonica/Saloniki/Thessaloniki.

2/1 NFA were in the Salonika theatre from September 1916 until after the Armistice. They were probably based in or around the city for the first year (not sure where exactly!). But after Sep 1917 they were stationed at Stavros, on the other side of the Halkidiki peninsula, on the evacuation route from the southern end of the Struma River line.

Adrian

[slogger]

Thanks to everyone for info, from which I am now able to draw some kind of picture of "Uncle Johns War". Anyone know why he would be a marksman then go into NFA?

This illustrates how deceiving our memory can be. I was sure that my gran (uncle john`s sister) said that he still had relapses, if that is the right word, of malaria but surely not from that area of the world?

and remember my grandfather mentioning mesopotaina and gallipolli but this does not reflect on his own mic card