The Story of the Great War, Volume 3 / History of the European War from Official Sources

by Unknown

The landing party at Beach W consisted of the First Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, under command of Major Bishop. "It was," wrote Sir Ian Hamilton, "to the complete lack of the sense of danger or of fear of this daring battalion that we owed our astonishing success." After a preliminary bombardment by the supporting warships the men of the First Battalion, in thirty-two cutters drawn by eight picket boats, approached the shore. The Turks made no move until the men were in shallow water and were leaping out of the boats. Then they opened fire with a murderous torrent from artillery, machine guns, and rifles. The first line of the First Battalion went down to a man. The second never faltered, but came on bravely into the fire, striving desperately to cut the wire entanglements. So quickly did they fall that observers on the warships wondered why they were "resting" on the bullet swept shore instead of running to cover.

Rapidly the men from Lancashire worked. Finally a remnant of the battalion forced its way through the last line of wire and ran for shelter on the bush covered slopes. Almost at the same moment, detachments that had landed on the rocks at Cape Tekke and under Cape Hellas began to have an important effect upon the struggle. At the latter point, the Eighty-eighth Brigade, under Brigadier General Hare, clambered up the steep side of the cliffs, searched out the machine gun positions of the enemy and swept the ground clear with the bayonet. This and the work of the force at Cape Tekke eased the Turkish fire on the beach and, on the slopes of the Cape Tekke side of the ravine, the few remaining officers of the First Battalion were able to re-form the remnants of their force and advance upon Hill 114.

About nine o'clock reenforcements were landed, this time not on the exposed beach but under Cape Tekke, the heights of which were by now largely in the hands of the British troops. With the help of these fresh troops, three lines of Turkish trenches were carried. Brigadier General Hare was seriously wounded and his place was filled by Colonel Wolley-Dod, who was sent ashore with orders to organize a further advance at all speed. At this point the attacking force ran up against the Turkish redoubt at Hill 138.

The afternoon opened with an intense naval bombardment of the ground around Hill 138 and of that redoubt itself. At two o'clock the Fourth Battalion of the Worcesters was ordered to take the position by assault. Under Lieutenant Colonel D. E. Cayley, they advanced a considerable distance under rifle fire and charged up the heights with a cheer. The Turks fought bravely against a stronger force, but by four o'clock Hill 138 was in the hands of the Worcesters.

Less than a mile down the coast, almost to the old fort and village of Sedd-el-Bahr, was what was known as V Beach. There a landing in great force was attempted. Largely because of the scale of the operations, but also because of the difficulties and the accidents of warfare, this landing was made with great losses.

The beach and the shore in the immediate vicinity form a most regular amphitheatre of a radius of about 400 feet. The beach is about 10 yards wide and 350 to 400 feet long and it runs into a slightly concaved, grassy slope that rises gently to a height of a hundred feet. Little or no real cover was to be found on this slope and the defenders were able to sweep it from all angles with a devastating rain of all kinds of shells. Just at the edge of the strip of sand, however, was a continuous escarpment about four feet high, which afforded a cover in which troops once ashore might be re-formed. As a result of the early naval bombardment of the tip of the peninsula, much of the village of Sedd-el-Bahr and the fort and the barracks had been reduced to ruins. The ruins afforded, however, excellent cover for the Turkish troops and proved a serious obstacle to the advance of the British when they reached the shore.

In addition to the natural disadvantages under which the attacking party had to work, the Turks had constructed two lines of barbed wire obstacles—one at the edge of the beach and the second two-thirds of the way up to the top of the ridge. These two lines of barbed wire were more stoutly constructed than were any others with which the British had to contend. Just beyond the second obstacle the Turks had built their first line of trenches and beyond the ground was scored with innumerable covers for the defenders.

The force assigned to the attack upon V Beach was composed of the Dublin Fusiliers, the Munster Fusiliers, half a battalion of the Hampshire Regiment, the West Riding Field Company and a few minor units. The action opened with a short range bombardment of the enemy's trenches and such parts of the fort, the village and the barracks as were still standing and believed to be affording cover for riflemen and machine-gun batteries. Then three companies of the Dublin Fusiliers were towed ashore. At this point one of the great experiments of the Gallipoli landings was put to the test, and, despite the cleverness of its conception, it did not meet with great success.

A large transport vessel, the River Clyde, had been loaded with about 2,000 troops. She had been reconstructed inside and great doors had been cut in one of her sides. The troops were ready on long platforms for instant disembarkation. The ships were to be run ashore, as close as possible to the beach, lighters were to be floated in between her and the shore, the side doors were to be flung open, and the troops were to rush ashore and carry the slopes by sheer momentum. In the front of the vessel, protected by sandbags, was a battery of machine guns which, it was hoped, would be especially effective in protecting the landing force from counterattacks.

As at the other landings, the Turks gave no sign of life until the collier had been beached and the other landing force had almost reached the shore in its tows. Indeed, so long did they hesitate in opening fire that at one time the watchers on the warships thought the landing was going to be unopposed. They were soon disabused of such an idea, however, as the first of the towboats grounded on the sandy beach, the Turks opened fire from a dozen different positions. Many of the Dublin Fusiliers were killed before they were able to get out of their boats. A few scrambled ashore and reached the shelter of the escarpment that rimmed the beach. The Turks concentrated their fire on the boats and their crews. None of them were able to get away, and almost instantly their crews were killed and the boats wrecked.