John Dash, older brother of Herbert Dash, was born in 1887. Unlike his brother, was not part of the war from the beginning. In the 1911 census, he is listed as a boarder with a horsekeeper on a farm in Hertfordshire, with his trade or calling listed as a blacksmith. On April 5, 1915, John married Charlotte Lilian Randall in Cobham, Surrey after which he returned to Cambridgeshire with his bride to the same cottages near Meldreth where his family lived. Just over a month later, on May 14, 1915, he signed his attestation papers to the Royal Field Artillery and Royal Horse Artillery as a shoeing smith.
After training throughout the summer in England and undergoing journeyman testing and certification, his unit, the 100th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery in the 22nd Division, embarked for France in September of 1915. After a brief two months, the unit was one of many that was assigned to the Mediterranean theatre of war in the fall of 1915 to provide military assistance to the Serbs who had recently been attacked by combined German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian armies.
The Macedonian Campaign, also called the Salonika Campaign (about which the Salonika Campaign Society has collected a great deal of information), was established through the fall of 1915 and winter of 1916 at Salonika (now Thessaloniki), in Northern Greece. It was marked by several battles, and saw thousands of soldiers participate between 1915 and 1918, but receives much less attention than the Western Front. It is perhaps best known for the thousands of cases of malaria that came from the ravages of mosquitos in the mucky conditions.
![christmas card 22 [1600x1200] [1600x1200] [1600x1200].jpg.opt493x315o0,0s493x315](https://i0.wp.com/fiftytwodavids.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/christmas-card-22-1600x1200-1600x1200-1600x1200-opt493x315o00s493x315.jpg?resize=493%2C315&ssl=1)
Christmas postcard from Salonika in 1916.
Being back in England also allowed him time with his family, and in October 1917, his son, John Cornelius Aubrey Dash was born. Sadly, being on the home front did not shield John from further tragedy. On March 6, 1919, one month after John had been discharged from his unit, his 16-month old son died due to complications from the influenza virus that had ravaged the western world throughout 1918 and 1919. I haven no record of John and Charlotte having any more children. John passed away in Cambridge in 1951 at the age of 63.
[…] Dash is the third Dash brother I am writing about in this series. His older brothers Herbert and John have already been covered earlier this year. Yesterday marked 123 years since he was born in […]