by Peter Hart
The torrents of casualties all but overwhelmed the medical arrangements back near the beaches. The wounded were soon lying all around the dressing stations, out in the open under the blazing sun, still under occasional fire. The doctors, the medical orderlies and, above all, the stretcher bearers were exhausted beyond measure. But they worked on, conscious of their duty to the shattered men all around them and plagued by a familiar pest.
One of the most horrible features for the wounded lying in the hot sun, with bloodstained dressings and filthy clothes, was the plague of flies. Great blue bottles swarmed over every dressing and when one had sometimes to change a dressing or move one for any purpose, the wounds were already crawling with maggots. When there were hundreds of stretchers in a line stretching far back into the scrub from the pier it meant that anyone far back was likely to remain there anything up to 36 hours or more. Many wounded were without jackets or distinguishing clothing but an orderly called my attention to the fact that one man far back in the queue was a Brigadier-General. At the time I didn’t know his name but later learned it was Brigadier-General Cooper (29th Brigade). His arm was shattered and in a tourniquet. I told him I had not known sooner who he was and offered to get him quickly to the pier. He asked me how many were in front and how long would he normally have to wait. I told him, ‘Hundreds!’ and probably over 24 hours’ wait. He said firmly that I was to give him no advantage and everyone in front must be moved before him. I do not know whether he lived or not but it was quite 24 hours before he was moved to the hospital ship and the wound by then would be crawling with maggots and the limb probably gangrenous.63
Lieutenant Norman Tattersall, No. 13 Casualty Clearing Station, RAMC
For Lieutenant Norman King-Wilson aboard the hospital ship Caledonia it was a ghastly experience. Lighter after lighter pulled up loaded with the wounded. Soon there were some 1,350 men crammed aboard and the doctors and nurses were unable to cope.
We worked, one and all, until we could no longer tell what we were seeing or doing, dressing, dressing, dressing, hour and hour on end, all day and all night, picking out the cases where the dreaded gas gangrene had set in, where immediate and high amputation was the only hope of saving life. Even the clean open decks stank with the horrid smell of gangrenous flesh, and the holds, dark, hot and ill-ventilated, were just like cockpits of the fleet in the days of Nelson. The operating room was a veritable stinking, bloody shambles, where patients were brought up on a stretcher and left waiting for their predecessor to be taken down, then rapidly chloroformed, placed on the table, a leg or arm whipped off in a couple of minutes, by a circular incision, one sweep of the knife and the bone sawed through, the limb thrown into a basket with many others, awaiting incineration. No sutures were used, just a huge moist dressing applied to the stump. Then McCasey, bloody and perspiring, in the muggy, tropical night, would await the next poor victim of German ambition, who, in his turn, would be rendered a maimed testimonial to his life’s end, of the brutality and savagery of war. Modern war? Perhaps, but does the limb shattered by a bullet look as brutal as the limb half cut through by a sword? Does the chest through which a half pound of jagged shell has ploughed its way appear less brutal than that pierced by a rapier or even a spear? Assuredly, since the days when men killed with club alone, no warfare has produced such savage wounds, such shattered wrecks, once human bodies, as the war surgeon of today has to deal with.64
Lieutenant Norman King-Wilson, HMHS Caledonia
The journey to Alexandria took four long days, the daylight hours filled with exhausting work and every night the grim ritual of the burials at sea.
The Parson every night, at midnight exactly, would appear in surplice and cassock on the main deck, aft, and there by the flickering light of a solitary candle lantern, would read aloud the burial service. It was the most weird ceremony one could possibly imagine – lying on the deck, bound tightly up in sailcloth, with a weight at the feet, anything from three to near a score of silent motionless figures. Three placed at a time on the gangway board from the ship’s bulwark, lying feet pointing seaward, the Union Jack spread over all three, the hundreds of dark figures watching from the decks, sailors and soldiers, silent and awed for once at the sight of the last rites of those chaps who so lately had been cheery lusty comrades. The few words of the Chaplain soon over, the Union Jack is whipped off the bodies by a sailor and three bells are heard in the engine room, the great engines stop their roar and the ship glides on in silent darkness. The board is elevated and with a swish, followed by a dull splash, those three join Britain’s countless dead, deep down in the Aegean Sea, far from home and those who hope for their return. Once again the Chaplain reads over three more, again the splash, and so on, until it is over and the watchers disperse to their rest or their work, but in each brain, be it ever so dull, an impression must linger until their life’s end.65
Lieutenant Norman King-Wilson, HMHS Caledonia
AUGUST: SUVLA BAY LANDINGS
The success of the operation depended upon the progress made by the new troops landing at Suvla Bay. At daybreak, those of us with glasses eagerly scanned the country where we expected the Suvla troops to be. Gradually the country was searched with our glasses from right to left, finally resting on Suvla Bay itself, where we found the landing force had not advanced beyond the beach. To the best of our knowledge there was little to stop the new force straddling the Peninsula almost without opposition and it is describing it mildly to say we were bitterly disappointed.1
Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Tilney, 13th (New South Wales) Battalion, 4th Brigade, NZ&A Division, AIF
THE BRITISH IX CORPS OPERATIONS at Suvla Bay were never the main event in the August offensives and the common Australian perspective, as typified by the quote above, is simply wrong. The plan at Suvla was to secure a safe harbour and army base for future combined Suvla and Anzac operations. As such it was secondary to the ANZAC Corps operations. Although the initial plans had been diluted down from the coup de main conceived by General Sir Ian Hamilton due to the escalating caution of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stopford influenced by his domineering Chief of Staff Brigadier General Hamilton Reed, none the less the idea was still to seize the heights that enclosed the Suvla Plain, namely the Kiretch Tepe and Tekke Tepe ridges. The main flaw in this plan lay in its reliance on a faulty interpretation of prior intelligence reports and a failure to adapt to later aerial reconnaissance. This created an obstacle out of the dry Salt Lake, exaggerated the scale of the Turkish defences on Chocolate Hill and, perversely, underestimated the strength of the Turkish outpost on Hill 10. As a result Hamilton’s headquarters had vetoed any thoughts of a direct advance by the 11th Division from B and C Beaches to thrust either directly across or around the southern shore of Salt Lake to capture Chocolate Hill, Green Hill and W Hills. Instead the 34th Brigade was to land at A Beach on the northern side of Suvla Bay, capture Hill 10 and then send a battalion to secure the entire length of the Kiretch Tepe Ridge running along the north of the Suvla Plain. Meanwhile, the 32nd Brigade was to land on B Beach and, having first captured the Lala Baba hills north of the beach, was to move north, join with the rest of 34th Brigade and march all the way round the shores of Salt Lake to attack Chocolate Hill from the north, thereby taking the largely imaginary Turkish defences from the rear. The 33rd Brigade was to cover the right flank of the whole landing and provide the divisional reserve as required. Once the artillery and baggage of the 11th Division were safely ashore, the landing craft would be reused to land the men of the 10th Division.
Many of the senior officers of the assaulting battalions were given the chance, courtesy of the Royal Navy, to take a look at the landing sites and terrain that faced them. Among them was Lieutenant Colonel Bashi Wright of the 11th Manchesters.
I first heard of the projected landing at Suvla Bay a few days before the landing was made, when I, with the Brigadier and the three other commanding officers of the 34th Brigade, were sent on board a destroyer which was le
aving Imbros on patrolling duty. Before we left harbour we were disguised as marines in order to prevent our being recognised as soldiers. We moved slowly along the coast of the Peninsula, from Anzac to the north of Suvla Bay at a distance of about one to two miles from the shore. We were able to see something of the land and with our maps ready we were told the plan of the landing. The Manchester Regiment were to move along the coast and clear the high ridge of hills on the north – that is, Karakol Dagh and Kiretch Tepe Sirt. As we went round the coast I tried to spot the lie of the country we had to cover. It looked very rough and the ridge to be cleared appeared to be a very strong position.2
Lieutenant Colonel Bashi Wright, 11th Manchester Regiment, 34th Brigade, 11th Division
With minimal knowledge of what awaited them, many junior officers, NCOs and men of the Suvla battalions were confident that they were superior to the Turks. The disasters at Helles and Anzac were flukes. This time all would be well.
The 11th Division sailed from Imbros at 19.45 in the early evening of 6 August in ten destroyers and ten ‘beetle’ lighters. The landings of the 32nd and 33rd Brigades on the long sandy sweep of B Beach north of Nibrunesi Point went near-perfectly. There was no opposition and the battalions quickly sorted themselves out ready for action. The 7th South Staffordshire and the 9th Sherwood Foresters moved off to the south to dig a system of flanking defences covering the beach landing places, while the 6th Yorkshires moved forward to attack the Turkish positions on Little Lala Baba, Lala Baba and to clear Nibrunesi Point. This would be the first attack made by a unit of Kitchener’s all-volunteer New Army and they were very raw troops. Indeed on the Western Front the New Army would not go into offensive action until the Battle of the Somme nearly a year later. Following up well behind the 6th Yorkshires was Second Lieutenant Edmund Priestman of the 6th York and Lancasters, a devoted former Scoutmaster. He could not help but be nervous as they approached the beach.
What was waiting for us? What had the first landing party found? You can picture us standing at the rail with our pulses doing tattoos as we strained our eyes into the darkness. Slowly our boat comes to a stop, and the absence of the rushing waves under her bows leaves a silence that can be felt hanging over the waters of the little bay in which we find ourselves. Only away on our right comes the distant rattle of a volley and the dull boom of an occasional gun at Anzac. So the Turkish picquet has been driven in by the Yorkshires and the land is clear. A lighter glides alongside us out of the shadow of the beach and as it draws near, ‘Crack, crack, r-r-r-r-r-rattle, crack!!!’ From among the black mounds inland a sharp crackling of rifles and then silence again. As the echo dies away over the still water all our conjectures return. If the Turks are driven back, whose is this firing? What’s happening beyond there, among the shadows?3
Second Lieutenant Edmund Priestman, 6th York and Lancaster Regiment, 32nd Brigade, 11th Division
Having come ashore, they advanced up the main Lala Baba hill.
So we are nearing the introduction we have all had in our minds so long: the introduction to war as it is. As we push on, through sweet, sickly smelling scrub now, the darkness in front takes the form of a peaked hill and we meet the first slopes of its flank. And then, to our straining ears, there comes a voice from the blackness on our right. Almost inaudible at first, it swells up into a shrill, wordless whine, quavers for a moment and then dies again into silence. Then again, ‘Ah-h-h-h-h-h.’ This time it halts and inflects as though trying to frame some word, then, almost as though it would sing a few quivering notes, it sinks down the scale into the night and the shadows again.4
Second Lieutenant Edmund Priestman, 6th York and Lancaster Regiment, 32nd Brigade, 11th Division
By midnight the 32nd Brigade had a firm grip on Lala Baba. Then all urgency vanished and no push was made, as planned, to join up with the 34th Brigade for the advance on Hill 10. Firing could be heard ahead and it was considered that to avoid confusion the troops should wait until dawn illuminated the situation. Precious hours were squandered.
Meanwhile, the landing of the 34th Brigade on A Beach actually within Suvla Bay was a disaster. The men’s experiences sum up those of all the soldiers who fought in the first two weeks at Suvla Bay, so it is fortunate for future historians that the collected memories of their surviving senior NCOs and officers were collated in April 1916 to answer criticism of their performance. Seen through the prism of their memories, then, Suvla seems a far more threatening and deadly battleground than it is conventionally portrayed; their response not quite so pusillanimous and rather more pragmatic in the face of complete chaos and a threatening Turkish opposition. Their misadventures began when the ‘beetle’ lighters were brought to the bay towed by the three British destroyers Beagle, Grampus and Bulldog.
Considerable difficulty was experienced at times by the breaking away of the towing ropes and it was imminently expected by those on board that we would either cut adrift and capsize, or be wrecked against the side of the destroyer. On one occasion the rope broke away, taking with it the rail. Regarding the troops, in some cases sleep had come as a welcome relief, but in the majority of cases former gaiety had given way to anxiety as to the ultimate issue of the enterprise, especially when the orders of strict silence and no smoking were given by the commander of the destroyer. The engines of the destroyer stopped and a whisper went round that we were ‘There!’ The destroyer had stopped, the towing ropes were unfastened and we were sent forward under our own steam. The commander of the destroyer, who was standing on the bridge, wished us ‘Good Luck!’ as we moved off.5
Sergeant William Taylor, 11th Manchester Regiment, 34th Brigade, 11th Division
Packed tightly aboard one of the lighters were a company of the 11th Manchesters, a further company of 9th Lancashires and the two headquarter companies. They cast off from their destroyer about a mile from shore, but as the destroyers had anchored some 1,000 yards to the south of their intended positions in the north of the bay, the lighters were heading straight for the area already identified by the navy as being likely to shoal rapidly.
Midshipman Henry Denham was aboard the small picket boat which accompanied a lighter as it chugged slowly into Suvla Bay. With his senses heightened by anxious anticipation, every sound they made seemed to echo round in his head.
Everything here seemed unbelievably quiet, and at last the destroyers let go their anchors, making sufficient noise to rouse every drowsy Turkish sentry in Suvla Bay. Our landing craft, heavily laden with troops, headed for the shore closely followed by my picket boat. Apart from the throb of the landing craft’s diesel engine the night was still and inky black.6
Midshipman Henry Denham, HMS Agamemnon
Then, as had been feared, the lighters ran aground on sandbanks or reefs between fifty and 100 yards from the shore. There was much more noise in almost farcical circumstances.
The officer in charge of the lighter gave out some orders to a junior officer who was standing at the gangway ready to lower it for disembarkation. Up to this point we were all inwardly congratulating ourselves that we had a very easy task and that we would not be discovered landing. We had a very rude awakening! The officer gave his orders in a fairly low tone, but owing to the elements they had to be repeated several times, until his voice developed into a loud bawl. He continually bawled out the name of Robertson; simultaneously with this came the enemy’s fire which seemed to come from the right.7
Sergeant William Taylor, 11th Manchester Regiment, 34th Brigade, 11th Division
Whether the Turks heard the confusion and shouting, or had already been alerted by the lighters’ throbbing engines and were merely biding their time, the result was the same.
A heavy rifle fire was opened on us from our right at a range of about 200 or 300 yards and shrapnel burst over us. Then I knew that we had been taken to the wrong beach and were close to Lala Baba, about two miles south of where we should have been. We tried to take soundings with a stick, but could not reach bottom, and I was not goin
g to disembark my men in deep water and drown them. The weight of the ammunition and kit they were of necessity carrying was such that a man would have little chance of getting ashore in deep water.8
Lieutenant Colonel Bashi Wright, 11th Manchester Regiment, 34th Brigade, 11th Division
They were facing a beach some 200 yards to the south of the Cut, a dried-up channel running from the Salt Lake to the sea. And there they were, packed together in the lighters, static targets well within rifle range, hopelessly stuck aground on the sandbanks. Soon they began to suffer casualties. Something had to be done. But what?
The moment the firing started we all lay down in the lighter and the bullets came pretty close; I heard several men say they were hit. We were now stuck pretty fast and a somewhat heated altercation took place between our CO and the naval commander. The latter said here we were and here we must disembark; my CO said he would not disembark at a place where every man would be out of his depth, and would probably drown. Some rough soundings were taken which varied from 5–12 feet which shows how ‘rough’ they were. As a final expedient the men were pushed and packed back in the stern to take the weight off the bows and so get off the obstruction, but this proved futile. Finally it was decided for a few men to go over the end with a rope attached to the lighter and take this to shore and that the remainder should get to shore as best as they could hanging on to the rope and pulling themselves along by it. The CO called for tall men and I being about 5 feet 11 inches stepped forward. Our Second in Command, Major Sillery, was going over first. He turned to me and said, ‘I advise you to take off all your equipment like me!’ I did so and jumped in after him. I went clean under and could not touch bottom. However, I struck out and in about 5 yards I found my depth. The CO of the 9th Lancashire Fusiliers9 followed and when we three got to the shore Major Sillery, the Colonel and I hung on to the rope and kept it as taut as we could.10
