Current Information:

Born-Kensington

Alexandria (Chatby) Military & War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt#

Gallipoli 1915

On 25 April, British, Australian and New Zealand forces landed on the Gallipoli peninsula. The plan was that these forces would soon defeat a demoralised Turkish army, knock Turkey out of the war, open up the Mediterranean to the Russian navy and threaten Austro-Hungary from the south. None of these things were achieved despite nine months of hard fighting in terrible conditions. The fighting soon degenerated into trench warfare with the Allies unable to break out of their toe holds on the tip of the Helles peninsular and at ANZAC Cove. The Turkish soldiers were much tougher fighters than they had been given credit for and they were of course fighting an invasion of their homeland. The terrain, a series of steep rocky ridges and deep gullies made the fighting much more difficult  and during the hot summer of 1915, the flies arrived in biblical proportions. By January 1916, all British, Australian and New Zealand forces had left Gallipoli, leaving only behind the dead, over 56,000 of them.

Thomas Ryan died from unknown causes on 4th June, 1915, after having been evacuated to Egypt. Gallipoli was not a healthy place to be in the summer of 1915. With all the dead bodies lying around, fierce heat, swarming flies and a great shortage of drinking water, let alone any to wash with, disease was rife. At one stage it was reckoned that up to 80% of the troops ashore had dysentery, many of them barely being able to stand. Many of the deaths at Gallipoli were from these diseases.