Current Information:

Age-17

25, Hadyn Park Road, Shepherd's Bush

Gallipoli 1915

On 25 April, British, Australian and New Zealand forces landed on the Gallipoli peninsular. 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. It was an heroic failure.

As early as November 1914, the Royal Navy launched the first attack on the Dardanelles when British and French battleships tested the fortifications of the Gallipoli peninsular and although successful inasmuch as Turkish gun emplacements were destroyed by naval gunfire at Sedd el Bahr, it also served as a warning to the Turks who proceeded to strengthen their defences. Further attacks were made on the 19th and 25th February 1915 and on the second of these occasions Royal Marines were landed but met little opposition before being withdrawn.

By now, the Turks had laid mines across the Dardanelles and attempts to clear them made little progress so once again, on 4th March 1915, marines landed on the peninsular but this time they met much stronger opposition and 23 Royal Marines from the Plymouth Battalion of the Royal Naval Division and 3 sailors from HMS Lord Nelson and HMS Ocean were killed.

On 18th March, 1915, a fleet of 18 British and French warships sailed into the Dardanelles in an attempt to silence the shore defences and thereby allow the mines to be cleared unhindered. But the mobile Turkish shore batteries proved to be both effective and elusive and the first wave of ships was damaged by shell fire, including the battlecruiser HMS Inflexible. As they swung round to allow the second wave to pass through they ran into a new string of mines which the Turks had only recently laid and which had not been detected. The French battleship Bouvet was the first to hit one of these mines and she sank with the loss of 639 crew. The next victim was HMS Inflexible. 30 of her crew were killed, including Edwin Kemp, but the ship stayed afloat and eventually made it back to Tenedos. 15 minutes later HMS Irresistible met the same fate and 11 of her crew were killed and 2 died later of wounds. The rest were taken off and HMS Ocean tried to tow her clear but she too hit a mine and both ships were left helpless and abandoned. None of the objectives of that day were achieved and the minefields remained in position.