Current Information:

Enlisted-Stratford

Gallipoli 1915

On 25 April, British, Australian and New Zealand forces landed on the Gallipoli peninsula hoping for a quick campaign that would knock Turkey out of the war. But it was not to be. The Turks fought bravely, the terrain was a maze of ravines and very soon the stalemate of trench warfare had set in. Add to this the summer heat, water shortages, dead bodies lying around and millions of flies and the place took on nightmarish proportions. By January 1916, all British, French, Indian, Australian and New Zealand forces had left Gallipoli, leaving only behind the dead, over 56,000 of them.

69 (Howitzer) Battery of the Royal Field Artillery were attached to 13th Division which landed at Anzac on the Gallipoli peninsula in July 1915 in preparation for the August Offensive that was launched on 6 August. They were involved in much of the fighting on the peninsula that summer and on 30th August, Frank Oxley died from wounds but it is not known when, nor in what circumstances, he was wounded.