Current Information:

Born-Theale, Berkshire

Beach Cemetery, Anzac Cove, Gallipoli

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. It was an heroic failure.

By July, 1915, and after much fierce fighting, stalemate had set in at Gallipoli both at Cape Helles where the British and French had landed and at Anzac Cove where the Australian and New Zealand Corps were unable to break out of their beach head. Fresh troops were needed and they were on their way in the shape of four divisions from Britain and things were put on hold until they arrived.

The plan for August was for a landing at Suvla Bay to the north of Anzac Cove whilst at the same time, the ANZAC Corps, reinforced by some of the new British troops would effect a breakout from Anzac Cove and establish a line across the peninsula. Whilst this was going on the troops in the south at Helles would stage a number of diversionary attacks. But it all went horribly wrong and much of the reason for this can be explained by inadequate planning and leadership. Nobody seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing and Lieutenant-General Stopford, in charge of the Suvla landings was particularly out of his depth. The landings at Suvla failed to link up with the forces at Anzac and the breakout from there did not happen despite valiant efforts by all concerned. The loss of life on all fronts was again enormous. L.A. Carlyon’s excellent  book “Gallipoli” gives a superb yet chilling account of the events.

By 17th July, 1915, all three brigades the 13th Division had reached Helles and on 4th August, the 5th Wiltshire battalion of 40 Brigade moved to Anzac Cove in readiness for their participation in the August attack. During the night of 6/7th August they were part of the force that made their way northwards up the coast before turning inland to attack the heights of Sari Bair from the north with the objective of capturing Hill 971. They were part of the covering column rather than the assaulting force and made good progress despite meeting some rifle and machine-gun fire from Bauchop’s Hill and Table Top. They took up covering positions on Damakjelik Bair where they engaged Turkish troops throughout 7^th August, sustaining a number of casualties in the process, one of whom was Alfred Foreman.