In May 1918 Ben-Gurion joined the newly formed Jewish Legion of the British Army and trained at Fort Edward in Windsor, Nova Scotia. He volunteered for the 38th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, one of the four which constituted the Jewish Legion. His unit fought against the Ottomans as part of Chaytor's Force during the Palestine Campaign, though he remained in a Cairo hospital with dysentery. In 1918, after a period of guarding prisoners of war in the Egyptian desert, his battalion was transferred to Sarafand. On 13 December 1918 he was demoted from corporal to private, fined three days' pay and transferred to the lowest company in the battalion. He had been five days absent without leave visiting friends in Jaffa. He was demobilised in early 1919.Teveth (1987) pp. court martial 135, 136, demob 144
