VCs of the First World War Gallipoli

by Stephen Snelling

  Not all of the wounded recovered from the shore survived the return journey. Leading Seaman James Parkinson, who had a narrow escape when a bullet passed through his cap, recounted the story of his second trip, when they brought off three wounded men:

  The boat was leaking very badly and one of the last three was drowned in the boat bottom. We were then called back by one of the ship’s officers who stated that it was sheer madness to go on, and if we did not return on board and under cover, anything we did would not be recognised. And if we did carry on we should probably be dead men because the Turks had by now got a machine-gun trained on us.

  We had no alternative than to obey orders and the boat was getting full of water. So we were able to grasp the holes in the side of the River Clyde and pull ourselves in board.

  It is unclear precisely when Tisdall was compelled to stop his rescue work. An officer, from the 2nd Hampshires, aboard the River Clyde saw him helping wounded off the rocks around midday. For more than an hour Tisdall and his gallant party had toiled to save lives in the face of what one eyewitness described as ‘murderous’ Turkish fire. Tisdall’s inspirational leadership made a deep impression on Lt. Cdr. Wedgewood, who had also been greatly impressed by the gallantry displayed by petty officers Rumming and Russell, from his own unit. On 26 April he wrote to his friend Winston Churchill, informing him of the efforts of ‘Lieut Tidsdale (?) RND’ [sic], and added that he had recommended Rumming and Russell for the VC.

  Throughout the long day at V Beach, there were countless more acts of heroism, many of which went unseen and unrecognised. One man whose repeated acts of bravery were destined to be rewarded was Seaman George Samson, who we last encountered aboard the steam hopper Argyll with Midshipman Drewry. After the failure of the original plan, Samson had helped Unwin, Drewry and Malleson to establish a bridge to the shore. Then, when each in their turn was forced by wounds or exhaustion to give up their work, Samson remained on the hopper and lighters, tending the wounded.

  According to Drewry, ‘Samson … did very well in the afternoon, two or three times he took wounded from the beach to the hopper’. Samson later insisted he had been inspired by the example of Unwin and Drewry who, he said, had gone about their work ‘just as if they were aboard the Hussar in peacetime’. Hearing the ‘calls of help’ which, he said, ‘came from all around’, Samson felt compelled to act. He later recounted:

  The hail of bullets from the Turkish rifles was beginning to take its terrible toll, and I soon found fresh duties to perform – that of carrying the wounded from the shore to the hopper, from which they were, as soon as it was possible, transferred to the River Clyde … I cannot say that I felt quite as cool as I may have looked. I am not a very excitable sort when there is serious trouble about. It takes a good deal to disturb me, but I can say without hesitation that this was the ‘goods’ for excitement.

  During these first dark hours on the Gallipoli Peninsula I had many narrow escapes, just the same, of course, as my companions … Bullets were whizzing about our heads every few minutes, and we were soon aware of the fact that machine guns were in operation now that our forces were beginning to land in big numbers. Men were falling down like ninepins quite near us, and perhaps it was only the thought that we must give them a helping hand that made us forget our own danger … Really I feel I cannot say too much in praise of my officers – their work was absolutely an inspiration to me …

  Samson’s numerous acts of gallantry were probably of a longer duration than any of those performed by the heroes of V Beach. There is no record of him quitting his work during a day-long struggle in which any movement was certain of drawing heavy fire. He was still making his dangerous journeys, bringing much-needed succour to the wounded, well into the evening. Midshipman H. Weblin, one of the midshipmen from the Cornwallis who had spent much of the day sheltering from the Turkish fire aboard the steam hopper, recorded:

  We tried in vain to get medical assistance from the Clyde and in the evening Samson, AB, got a launch and we got everyone except one man who was too bad to move into the launch and went to the Clyde, which was by then, of course, joined to the hopper by lighters.

  Samson’s luck, however, ran out the following day. While giving covering fire from the decks of the River Clyde, he was badly wounded by shrapnel. He had been in action without a break for almost thirty hours. Carried below, he was found to have suffered more than a dozen separate wounds. So serious were his injuries that two doctors gave him no chance of survival.

  Surgeon Burrowes Kelly, who had treated more than 200 men aboard the River Clyde despite being wounded himself, later wrote:

  At the request of Captain Unwin I hobbled down to see him (not knowing that he was hit), and I remember how he asked me if there was any chance for him. I answered ‘Yes’, and I felt ‘Yes’, because he was possessed of such wonderful physique and strength. He was in great agony when I last saw him, and whether he lived or died I knew he had won the VC.

  In the days following the landings, a degree of confusion arose over the awards for gallantry at V Beach. On 5 May, with V Beach firmly in British hands, Rear Admiral Wemyss submitted VC recommendations for the four heroes from the River Clyde. ‘It has been a great pleasure doing so’, he noted in his diary, ‘but very difficult to find suitable language without being gushing’.

  As the weeks passed without word of honours for the naval heroes, the Army took a hand. On 6 June Lt. Gen. Hunter-Weston, who had commanded the 29th Division during the landing operations, broke with tradition and recommended two naval officers – Unwin and Drewry – for the Victoria Cross. ‘These names’, he noted, ‘were not submitted with my list of recommendations as I was under the impression that the Admiral was going to forward them’. The general had long been aware of the great gallantry displayed by Unwin and his faithful midshipman. Cdre. Roger Keyes later recorded that. ‘The general told me at least half a dozen dirty scraps of paper reached him from comparatively junior officers which bore testimony to Unwin’s devoted heroism, some written in the heat of action by officers who did not survive it.’ Among them was a note written by Capt. G.W. Geddes, who led one of the first parties of Munsters onto the beach. He wrote: ‘I saw Commander Unwin [sic] 3 or 4 times going out to the rocky spit … though wounded and under fire, picking up wounded men, putting them in a boat and bringing them back to the River Clyde.’ Another officer, Capt. R. Neave, of the 1st Essex, saw Unwin ‘standing in the water with a wounded man on his shoulders lifting him out of the water, into a boat …’. According to Capt. A. Sinclair Thomson, Unwin and Drewry had been ‘under a very heavy close-range rifle and machine-gun fire and both … knew that it was almost certain death to cross the area between the River Clyde and the beach’.

  On 16 August, almost two months after the first Army VCs of the campaign, the London Gazette announced the award of Victoria Crosses to Unwin, Drewry, Malleson, Williams and Samson. But slow as their official recognition was in coming, it was swift by comparison with the award of Tisdall’s VC. After a lengthy investigation, the award was eventually gazetted on 31 March 1916 – some three weeks after the announcement of the campaign’s last VC!

  Unwin’s citation read:

  While in River Clyde, observing the lighters which were to form the bridge to the shore had broken adrift, Commander Unwin left the ship, and under a murderous fire attempted to get the lighters in position. He worked on until, suffering from the effects of cold and immersion, he was obliged to return to the ship, where he was wrapped up in blankets. Having in some degree recovered, he returned to his work against the doctor’s orders and completed it. He was later again attended by the doctor for three abrasions caused by bullets, after which he once more left the ship, this time in a lifeboat, to save some wounded men who were lying in shallow water near the beach. He continued at this heroic labour under continuous fire, until forced to stop through pure physical exhaustion.

  The four other VCs announced on 16 August received only short citations. The
y read as follows. Drewry:

  Assisted Commander Unwin at the work of securing the lighters under heavy rifle and maxim fire. He was wounded in the head, but continued his work, and twice subsequently attempted to swim from lighter to lighter with a line.

  Malleson:

  Also assisted Commander Unwin, and after Midshipman Drewry had failed from exhaustion to get a line from lighter to lighter, he swam with it himself and succeeded. The line subsequently broke, and he afterwards made two further but unsuccessful attempts at his self-imposed task.

  Williams:

  Held on to a line in the water for over an hour under heavy fire, until killed.

  Samson:

  Worked on a lighter all day under fire, attending wounded and getting out lines; he was eventually dangerously wounded by Maxim fire.

  As the architect of the River Clyde plan, Edward Unwin ranks among the outstanding personalities of the Gallipoli Campaign. In the space of a few weeks, this middle-aged naval officer emerged from relative obscurity to command the single-most important vessel in the landing operations.

  Born on 17 March 1864, at Forest Lodge, Fawley in Hampshire, the son of Edward Wilberforce Unwin MA, JP, and Henrietta Jane (née Carnac), Unwin was privately educated at Cheltenham, Malvern Wells, and Clavering in Essex.

  At the age of fourteen, he joined the Conway training ship in the River Mersey, where a stormy two years culminated in him receiving two dozen strokes of the birch. His disciplinary record, however, did not blight his sea-going career. He served fifteen years in the Merchant Navy, first aboard a clipper owned by Donald Currie and then with P. & O., before transferring to the Royal Navy with the rank of lieutenant on 31 October 1895.

  Unwin married Evelyn Agnes Carew, daughter of Maj.-Gen. W. Dobree Carew, in 1897, and shortly afterwards embarked on his first military operation, a punitive mission against the West African kingdom of Benin, where a British trading party had been murdered. During the subsequent land operations, Unwin became embroiled in the fighting when hostile Edo tribesmen launched an attack on the supply camp which he commanded. The assault was repulsed and Unwin came through his first test unscathed. The expedition ended with the execution of the chiefs held responsible for the massacre. Unwin, for his part, received his first campaign medal.

  After a spell on the port guard ship HMS Thunderer, Unwin saw service in the second Boer War, for which he received the Queen’s South Africa Medal. In 1903 Unwin was promoted lieutenant commander and he retired from the Royal Navy six years later with the rank of commander. Recalled to active service shortly before the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914, Unwin was appointed fleet coaling officer on Admiral Jellicoe’s staff aboard HMS Iron Duke. The following February he was given command of HMS Hussar, part of the Mediterranean Fleet.

  Unwin’s subsequent involvement in the Gallipoli campaign was interrupted by a brief spell in England, where he was evacuated to recuperate from his exertions at V Beach. He underwent an operation at the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar, but by early July he was back in Mudros, in command of the cruiser HMS Endymion.

  Plans were already well advanced for a new landing to the north of Anzac at Suvla Bay in an effort to break the deadlock. Unwin, probably as a result of his experience gained at V Beach, was given command of a fleet of motor-lighters, designed to ferry the men of two New Army divisions ashore at night. Nicknamed ‘Beetles’ on account of their black hulls and antennae-like raised ramp arms, the bullet-proof lighters could carry 500 men on to the beaches. Unwin set about his new task with all his customary vigour, assisted by his former first lieutenant, George Drewry, who had volunteered to join him. Between 6 August, when Unwin directed the approach of the motor-lighters to the Suvla beaches, and 11 August the two River Clyde shipmates toiled tirelessly, ferrying men and equipment from ship to shore.

  On one occasion, Unwin’s determination to lead from the front evidently got the better of him. Drewry recorded:

  The beach was a narrow cove just room for three lighters and I had to wait about 20 mins. As I went in Unwin boarded me cursing the other people for not going in hard enough and getting their brows dry on the beach.

  He would show them the way. We went in at a fine speed and certainly got our brow dry, however, when we wanted to back out we found we would not budge. To make matters worse another lighter barged into our quarter and sent us up another three feet. A trawler hooked on but could not manage it so we remained on the beach all night and until the next 11.00 a.m.

  Drewry returned to HMS Hussar on 11 August. Unwin, however, remained at Suvla, serving there first as beachmaster and then, during the evacuation, as naval transport officer. In the days before the final withdrawal from Suvla, Unwin was to be found night and day on the beach piers superintending the removal of men, animals and stores. As at the V Beach and Suvla Bay landings, Unwin led by example. An army officer noted:

  Commander Unwin … stands over 6 feet and is broad in proportion, with the typical clean-shaven face of a sailor, and with a voice that roars orders through a megaphone, causing those who are ordered to jump about a good deal quicker on their jobs than they probably would do otherwise.

  Fittingly, Unwin was the last man to leave Suvla, in the early hours of 20 December. Flames from a blazing mountain of stores lit the sky as a picket boat ferried him to a waiting ship. Unwin’s extraordinary Gallipoli service, however, was eventful to the last. As a lighter crowded with soldiers neared one of the troop transports one man was seen to fall overboard. Unwin immediately dived into the sea and swam to his rescue, prompting Rear Admiral Wemyss to recommend him for a Royal Humane Society medal. In his final list of recommendations for services during the Gallipoli operations, Wemyss wrote of Unwin:

  His conduct during the intervening time [25 April–20 December] has been such as to call for the admiration and respect of all with whom he has been brought in contact and I would respectfully ask that his acting rank of Captain may be confirmed.

  In March 1916 Unwin was created a Commander of St Michael and St George (CMG) for his part in the successful evacuation. Two months earlier, on 15 January, Unwin had an appointment at Buckingham Palace to receive his Victoria Cross from George V.

  Not surprisingly, perhaps, the remainder of Unwin’s war services appear as something of an anticlimax. Given command of the light cruiser HMS Amethyst, serving on the remote South-East America Station, Unwin later returned to administrative staff duties, first as principal naval transport officer in Egypt (for which he later received the Order of the Nile) and then as PNTO in the Eastern Mediterranean. Promoted commodore in 1919, he was created a Companion of the Bath (CB) for his war services and went back into retirement the following year with the rank of captain, his seniority back-dated to 11 November 1918 as a reward for his distinguished record.

  In the years that followed, Unwin maintained close links with the men who shared with him the unfulfilled hopes of a campaign rich in gallantry and missed opportunities. Two years after retiring from the navy, he unveiled a memorial to Seaman Williams in Chepstow. Unwin, who regularly attended the annual memorial service for the veterans of the 29th Division at Eltham in Kent, remained a fierce critic of those he felt responsible for the failure of the Gallipoli operations. At one such service, he declared:

  If the campaign had been properly managed, Constantinople would have been taken, for no nation has sent forth to battle braver troops … At great sacrifice we landed, but we had not enough guns … A few more guns and the men would have got there.

  Unwin enjoyed an active retirement, combining numerous civic duties with sporting pursuits. A glittering array of trophies testified to his prowess as a yachtsman, and he was also a keen tennis and croquet player. After the war he lived at Cheltenham, before moving to the family seat, Wootton Lodge, Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, a splendid Elizabethan mansion. When Unwin left for Hindhead in Surrey in 1936, he brought to a close a 200-year family association.

  From 1929 until 1939 Unwin was deputy lieutena
nt of Staffordshire and, while living at Ashbourne, he was president of the Ellastone branch of the Royal British Legion.

  Capt. Unwin, who described the Gallipoli Campaign as a ‘heaven-sent idea of Mr Winston Churchill’s’, died on 19 April 1950. The former Merchant Navy officer, who achieved a measure of fame as captain of a converted collier on the beach of Sedd el Bahr, collapsed as he stepped from his wheel-chair on his way for his customary early morning shave in Grayshott. Carried into the barber’s shop, he died shortly afterwards. His wife had died the previous year, eighteen months after their golden wedding anniversary. They were survived by their two sons and two daughters. Thirty-five years to the day after the River Clyde had sailed out of Tenedos bound for V Beach and a place in naval history, the body of her renowned captain was laid to rest in Grayshott cemetery.

  William Charles Williams was the first member of the Royal Navy to be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Described by Capt. Unwin as the bravest sailor he ever knew, Williams was born on 15 September 1880, at Stanton Lacy, Shropshire, to William Williams and his wife Elizabeth.

  When Williams was still a boy, the family moved to Chepstow, where his father worked as a gardener at Pillinger’s Nurseries. One of a large family living at 11 Nelson Street, he had six sisters and, when his father later remarried, he gained a number of step brothers and step sisters.

  Educated at Chepstow Grammar School, he enlisted for Boy’s Service in the Royal Navy at Portsmouth on 17 December 1895. On his eighteenth birthday, after three years’ service, he signed on for twelve years. Little is known about his life. His naval record is merely a factual account of his services. It does, however, offer some physical description of the man. He had black hair, a fair complexion and grey eyes and was 5ft 81⁄2in tall.