Mentioned in Dispatches ...

[Hornspieler]

... Lest we forget

INTRODUCTION

My father was born in Greenwich in September 1889 and his father, a compositor with one of the London Dailies, died when he was only a small boy. His mother worked hard to provide for her family but she succumbed when Fred was only fifteen and he was sent to live with an uncle. Their antipathy was mutual, so at the age of just seventeen, Fred boarded a tram to nearby Woolwich and signed on as a regular soldier in the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

In 1908 his battalion was posted to India and he was in service there when the first World War broke out in 1914.

The series of letters to his Grandson Tony (my nephew) written in 1964 at the age of 75 take up his story from there.

It is remarkable that he was able to remember all those dates, places, triumphs and disasters after so many years.

Not without criticism, but also full of praise for the bravery and achievements of his comrades-in-arms, the “Dispatches” which follow form a valuable document of what actually happened over those troubled (and sometimes farcical) years of conflict.

So we start in India - and what happened on the way to Gallipoli ...


Watch this space!

[BBMmk2]

Oh this is interesting, HS. My paternal grandfather was an officer in that same regiment!

[Hornspieler]

Oh this is interesting, HS. My paternal grandfather was an officer in that same regiment!

Dear Tony,
I promised over the telephone I have been going over my memories of the 1914-1918
war and although some of the incidents may seem far-fetched to you I can assure you that what I write will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth "s'welp me Bob".
When the war broke out I was in India having been out there for about 4½ years. I had just missed being in a frontier war (North West Provinces including Khyber Pass), as the Battery I was posted to had just finished mopping-up operations there and I joined them soon after they arrived at Jubbulpore in the Central Provinces. They went back to England in 1912 and I was posted to the 97th Battery RFA who arrived from South Africa at that time and with the Battery was in Barracks at Madras, Southern India. We were due to go up to Peshwar which at that time was the key-point to the Khyber Pass, in Sept 1914, but war breaking out cancelled the move. As soon as War was declared a number of Batteries stationed at various places all over India were ordered to England to take part in the British Expeditionary Force landing in France and it was necessary for these particular Batteries to be made up to War-strength by transferring men from other Batteries. I can remember quite well one day the whole Battery parading in front of the Battery Office and when the OC appeared all of us saying we wanted to be included in the drafts being transferred to Batteries going home for the War. Our CO (Major T M Archdale DSO) who had been wounded four times in the Boer War and I believe was mentioned four times in Despatches beside being awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Bar told us we would get to the war in due course and we would find before it finished we would have had enough of war. Little did we think at that time how true his words were. Incidentally he (having been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel) was going to Ireland on leave from the war, three weeks before the war ended when the boat he was in H M Troopship The Leinster) was torpedoed in the Irish Sea and he was one of the hundreds drowned.

Our first experience of war was one night about a month after the war started when we heard heavy gun-fire from the sea and heavy explosions occurring all over Madras. It turned out it was a German Armed Merchantman named The Emden. This ship had been fitted with guns, when the war broke out, at one of the German Ports in their Colonies and had been creating havoc in the Indian Ocean sinking all the unarmed Merchant Ships it could find. Our Adjutant who was having Dinner in Fort St George, Madras right away went to the Battery of 6 inch guns permanently established there and with some men of the Madras Volunteer Artillery who had reported for duty, opened fire on The Emden which had all its lights on -thinking it was a soft job shelling Madras, apparently. He only managed to get two rounds off, one was short and the other over, when The Emden doused all her lights and skedaddled. We heard after that an Australian Destroyer ran her aground somewhere and practically shot her to pieces. (Episode I -sent Tuesday 26th May 1964. )

[Richard Tarleton]

Fascinating stuff HS. We share an Indian connection too. With the help of this website I've been piecing together the wartime careers of my grandfathers, both of whom were in the artillery! My paternal grandfather was in the Honourable Artillery Company 1909-13, but resigned to go to India to work for a commercial company. He signed up for the Indian Army in November 1914. He was briefly a motor cycle dispatch rider before returning to England and transferring to the Royal Field Artillery - the more mobile variety. His division was involved in Vimy Ridge, the Somme, Messines and 3rd Ypres, but we know from a poem he wrote (whilst maintaining a British stiff upper lip he poured out his feelings in poetry) that his unit served in Palestine - he wrote a poem on the eve of the start of the battle of Beersheba.

My other grandfather had a sadder time - a sensitive church organist and choirmaster, he found himself in the Royal Garrison Artillery as a gunner, from 1916. This is the species of artillery with massive guns and mortars which lobbed huge shells at the enemy from behind the lines. The family was always told he was gassed, but my researches have revealed that it was in fact shell shock - he was eventually repatriated to a specialist shell shock hospital on Merseyside, and dismissed from the army as "unfit to serve". I have scans of his thick medical file. He was taken by his wife to recuperate in Snowdonia (she was Welsh, and an army nurse), where my mother was duly conceived in September or October 1919.

[Barbirollians]

I agree jolly fascinating - the Eden however was a warship built as a light cruiser not an armed merchantman . That is why she was so much trouble until run to ground in the Cocos Islands by HMAS Sydney .

[Hornspieler]

Thanks for that Richard.

Now here is Fred's second dispatch to Tony:

We eventually sailed for England in a Convoy of 40 ships with no escort at all and arrived in England at the beginning of January 1915. Nothing happened on the journey over until we reached the Bay of Biscay (part of the Spanish Coast line) when we struck the most severe storm I have ever experienced at sea. We were all supposed to stay below decks but some of us more daring than others crept up on the top deck to watch the effects of the storm on the Convoy. The Ships were being hurled about like shuttle-cocks and I am not stretching it when I say some of them were listing so much you could see their keels as they heaved over. No-one was lost fortunately and after about six hours we were clear of the worst and arrived in Southampton within a few more days.

We were then sent to a place called Leamington Spa (about the centre of England) and as the two Batteries of our Brigade had left India before us and were in France we had two other Batteries made up of reservists and wounded men who had recovered and were reformed as the 368th or 386th Brigade RFA, I can't remember which number it was now.

Two more Batteries of the Royal Horse Artillery "Y" and "L" who had been severely mauled at Le Cateau near Mons and been returned to England for reinforcement and re-equipping also joined us there. "L" battery had quite a reputation by then as three of their Battery had been awarded the Victoria Cross for their rear action at Le Cateau. There was also a Sixty-pounder Battery and a Mountain Battery joining us which made up the Artillery Strength for the 29th Division, but whether they joined us there or when we sailed I am not sure at this time. Little did we know the 29th Division was to become the most famous division in the British Army and also we did not realise what casualties we were going to suffer before we returned to England again or I think we would have been justified in refusing to go to war. Some time in February we all embarked at Avonmouth Docks for an unknown Destination.
We arrived in Egypt where our twelve battalions of Infantry had also assembled and in case I forget to mention it later those men of the Infantry Battalions proved to be some of the best fighters the British Army ever had. We stayed in Egypt about 2 weeks or more and during that time I thought I would make another attempt at learning to swim. The Suez Canal is joined by 2 lakes called The Bitter Lakes. Their density is so high that it is impossible so they say for anybody to sink in them. Well again proved that you can't apply hard and fast rules where am concerned and I would certainly have sunk but for the fact that I took the precaution of having a friend who was a strong swimmer with me. So I gave up my final attempt to learn to swim but you will read later how I had to whether I wanted to or not.
At the beginning of April we started off again in ships usually one at a time for a still unknown destination.

All the Ships still sailing without any Naval Escorts. (End of 2nd dispatch)

Please feel free to comment

HS

[Richard Tarleton]

Looking forward to the next episode - the "unknown destination"! Are we still in 1915? I'm guessing where this is heading!

[Hornspieler]

Dispatch No 3:

Crossing the Mediterranean Sea

On the 15th April 1915 we had just finished a lecture by the CO when the alarm sounded and the CO said "Oh that's a practice alarm due about now." So we went off to get our Lifebelts before reporting at our boat stations. As there seemed to be such a rush of troops down to the decks below and coming up from there my friend (Bombardier A Neale) and I strolled over to the decks below and then saw a torpedo boat about three hundred yards away. As we stood at the rail she raised a red flag with a white crescent on it at her stern. My friend said "That's an Egyptian torpedo boat" and in spite of the fact that he was an Army Schoolmaster in India I said "Not on your life that's a Turkish torpedo boat." We argued for a couple of minutes and while we were looking we saw a dirty black torpedo slither from a torpedo tube and start skimming towards us. I remember saying “who's right now?" and we decided it was time to find a life belt. As there was still a rushing to and fro we went down to the life belt deck by swinging down the open hatch and dropping on the lower deck and having supplied ourselves with a life belt each proceeded to our Boat stations. I have never seen so much chaos as the boat on that ship in my life. I had always grown up in the belief that when a British Troop ship was sinking the troops all formed up in lines on the boat deck and did not move towards the boats until they were given orders and then did move as if they were on the Barrack Square. I believe the Captain of the boat, who as you know is always the Commander of everybody on the ship had given the order “Every man for himself” when the first torpedo was fired, which was before the one I actually saw fired, and the Merchant Seamen Crew had been the first to leave and so left nobody on the ship who had any knowledge of how to lower boats. When I arrived there the soldiers were fighting to get into the boats that were left and crowding them with more than they were supposed to carry and on one occasion I saw our Adjutant draw his revolver and threaten to shoot any man who was not out of the boat within ten seconds. Soldiers who had not panicked were trying to lower the boats which as you know when hung up on the boat deck are a long way from the water. They were so ignorant of how to lower a boat that one end would be let down first and the whole boatload would be shot into the sea. Another boat I saw being lowered when the davits (that's the iron supports which carry the boat hanging in normal times) snapped off at the boat rail and crashed on to the deck full of soldiers, at least half of whom must have been killed.
I eventually got tired of watching the chaos and inefficient lowering of the boats and climbed down into the water by a rope hanging down the side. The water when I entered it was so icy cold I wished I could climb back again. The lifebelt gave me ample support and in fact I kicked my heavy Army Boots off in the water and although I could not swim I struck out for an island I could see in the distance (I found out afterwards it was the Isle of Skyros and was roughly ten miles from where I was struggling in the water)
I managed about 50 yards in 21/2 hours. I was just about all in at the end of the
2½ hours, and if anybody tells you that when you are drowning you see your past life
over again tell them they are liars, well perhaps not that, but at least tell them they don't know what they are talking about, all I saw was that damned island 10 miles away. I was practically unconscious when the last thing I remember was seeing a fat Petty Officer of
the Navy standing up in the bows of a steam pinnace with a boat hook in his hand and I remember him hooking it into the seat of my pants and pulling me towards the boat.
Then I passed out. I came to six hours later in the boiler room of the Cruiser HMS Dartmouth and a sailor sitting alongside me told me he had been there for the whole six hours, taking my pulse frequently and giving me brandy or Bovril every two hours. He said did I feel like a walk on deck and I remember saying I'd walk anywhere except on the Sea.
On deck the Captain of the cruiser came along and asked how I was and when I said I felt alright he said "We picked up 23 altogether, do you think you are up to looking at the other 22 to see if you can identify them?"

I said I would. I only recognised one, who was a very great friend of mine in India, Bombardier Willis. The other's features were so distorted it was impossible to recognise them The Captain said to me "I hear you can't swim a stroke." and when I said "Yes, that's true." he said "Some of you blighters can walk on water when your luck's in." How right he was. Well next day after a night on the cruiser I was rowed back to our ship which was still floating although three torpedoes had been fired at it and apparently through being too near when they had fired they all went under the boat.
What annoyed me more than anything was that although I had not panicked those people who had made no effort to leave the boat had not wetted their boots even. We lost 51 drowned and amongst them were dozens of chaps I knew well who used to go swimming in some of the strongest running rivers in India. Of course as I said the water was icy cold and the waves were running at 30 feet high. One minute you would be down in the
trough of the sea and next minute 30 feet up on the crest of the wave. They must have died of exposure in most cases and I had kept myself alive by striking out for an island I could not have reached in ten years. That's luck.

We heard afterwards that the HMS Dartmouth had chased the Turkish boat and made it run aground on another island near the area and shot it up and taken the crew prisoners so I had the last laugh. This happened on the 15th April 1915 and we proceeded on to the island of Lemnos, another one of the Greek group of islands. We were there while the Division was completing the collection of ships and then on the 24th April 1915 at night sailed off for what we now knew was our destination "GALLIPOLI". (Episode III -sent 12th June 1964.)

Before I start on Episode IV, I must tell you part of the conversation between Fred and the Destroyer Captain, which Fred chose not to include in Tony's next dispatch:-

When Fred was fished from the sea, he was trying to reach an island which he could see on the horizon. As previously shown, he was the only survivor of the 52 who had jumped into the sea.

The Destroyer Captain was impressed.

"You must be a very strong swimmer"

I can't swim a stroke, Sir. I even sank in the Dead Sea.

The Captain shook his head in disbelief,

Some of you b_____s could Walk on the Water when your luck's in!"

Now on to Dispatch No 4:

[Richard Tarleton]

See PM!

[Hornspieler]

I thought that's where we would be going next. A bitter time for another member of my family - my great-grandfather's first cousin, my first cousin three times removed, Jack Fisher, First Sea Lord. He argued bitterly with Churchill - he didn't want his precious Navy to try to force the Straits in the absence of armed landings, forcing the Straits failed and the landings happened too late. Fisher was old and tired by this stage (though the WW1 navy was very much his brainchild). But nothing like seeing these awful events through the eyes of those who were there on the ground (or the water). Powerful stuff.
R

I hope you don't object to my quoting your private message, Richard.

It all helps to build up the understanding of what happened and how it affected our lives.

HS

[Richard Tarleton]

I hope you don't object to my quoting your private message, Richard.

It all helps to build up the understanding of what happened and how it affected our lives.

HS

On balance, no . Jack started from relatively lowly beginnings, rising through the ranks of the Navy by sheer ability. I've trodden the decks of HMS Warrior, in Portsmouth Harbour, on which he was Gunnery Lieutenant in the 1860s.

[Hornspieler]

Dispatch No 4 -Gallipoli

A Queen of England was supposed to have said "When I die you will find 'CALAIS' written on my heart." Well I don't know whether they did or not but I know that when I die you should find "GALLIPOLI" not written but cut out in letters a quarter of an inch deep on mine. You must get Mummy, if she can, to get out of the library a book entitled 'Gallipoli'. It will make interesting reading and you will find a lot there which will verify my letters on the subject.

The writer had all the official papers on Gallipoli that he could use to complete his book whereas I could write a book on it from my own experiences and what I saw happening and knew was not happening but should have been. I will have to cut the story a bit as some of the incidents would be too ghastly to relate. Right - Well we have arrived at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915 and although we were not told anything about the scheme I thought from what I saw that the Infantry had to land on the Peninsula and capture sufficient commanding positions to enable us who were standing by.
As usual things we were supposed to do, like a lot of other things afterwards, never succeeded in being completed according to plan, although it was not through the ordinary Tommy not doing his job but usually (as has been admitted in several books since) the inefficiency of the Brass Hats (Top people) who should either have been sacked before Gallipoli started or withdrawn immediately it was realised what a hopeless mess they had made of the whole operation. The junior officers were as brave as the soldiers and if sheer guts could have succeeded as it should have done we should have been in Constantinople in two weeks. However let's get on with my experiences.
Oh, by the way, before we had arrived in Lemnos the Navy had shelled the peninsula (Gallipoli) where we were going to land and smashed up a Fort where we had to get our guns into action and a lighthouse at the same spot. They had also gone up the Dardanelles and smashed up Forts on either side of the Dardanelles but because they lost a couple of ships the Admiral in charge got the wind up and withdrew the Navy to the harbour at Lemnos.
If he had not got the wind up he could have realised that the Navy Guns had smashed all the Forts' armament and could have sailed the other few miles up to Constantinople and demanded and got the Turks to surrender. So you see the Navy Big Brass were just as much to blame as the Army's, and as there was no Air Force in those days they did not come into it although I expect if there had been they would have dug up some old Air Marshal and allowed him to make a ruddy mess of the Air Force as well


Well before giving you my description of the landing it will help you to understand it if I give you roughly the names of regiments who were to take part. I am a bit hazy now about all of them hut will name as many as I can and then say where they landed if I know, although I shall not be able to name where they all landed as there was so much noise and things happening all around us that it was not possible to notice everything.

As far as my memory serves me the force was composed of
(a)29th Division which included:-
The Artillery:
One 60 Pdr Battery: One Field Artillery Brigade (3 Batteries): One Mountain Artillery Battery: Two Batteries of Royal Horse Artillery: Divisional Amunition Column.

Infantry
Lancashire Fusiliers. Royal Fusiliers. Essex Regiment. South Wales Borderers. Manchester Regiment. Border Regiment. Dublin Fusiliers. Munster Fusiliers. Also a Ghurka Regiment and a Punjabi Regiment (both Indian troops)
There were also two Naval Divisions (Battalions) and I think they were named Drake and Anson Battalions. (The poet Rupert Brooke was in one of them but he contracted an illness at Lemnos before the landing and was buried there).
There was an Ordnance Corps Depot at Lemnos which supplied the Force with armaments, equipment and clothing.[/COLOR]

The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps Known from that day as the ANZACS.
I believe that they still hold celebrations in Australia and New Zealand each year on the 25th April in memory of the landing at Gallipoli on that day.
After the landing it was stated that, as the Anzacs had fought so bravely, it was proposed to issue a special medal to all the Anzacs who took part, but they refused to accept it unless the 29th Division was included, so the proposal was dropped.
What the ANZAC forces were I do not know, but they had artillery and infantry men of course, and they held the front where they landed until the whole Force was withdrawn…I believe their position was most uncomfortable as the Turks looked right down on them from the mountain named Atchi Baba and they were almost confined to movement at night and moved about very little during the day.

(c) A French Force
I have no idea what the composition of this force was but I know that they had the famous (then) French 75mm gun which could fire more rounds per minute than any other field gun in the Allied Armies.

(d) The Royal Navy in support
This force included the biggest (at that time) battleship in the World, whose main armament was 15 inch guns and the old HMS Warspite, which had a 20 inch mortar mounted on her decks. There were also Battle Cruisers and Destroyers and Torpedo Boats for close to hand firing.
.

[Hornspieler]

Episode VI
Having now tried to explain it all, I will now go on to describe the actual landing as I saw it; but before doing so, I should tell you that the General Officer Commanding the operation was a certain General Sir Ian Hamilton, who had been dug out of retirement because they could not spare any of the Generals in command of the European operations, as they were too busy trying to get the British Army wiped out, so that they could return to England to be made Earls and granted £50,000 each as a reward from a grateful British Government.

Judging by the way that Hamilton ran the Campaign (from the safety of the deck of HMS Warspite throughout) he must have retired about a week after Adam and Eve were expelled from The Garden of Eden.
The fleet was commanded by Admiral de Roebuck and I imagine that his interpretation of “the Fleet” was someone who could run very fast, but unfortunately he ran the wrong way every time.

Now, regarding the landing at Gallipoli:- As I have already said we were given no idea of the overall policy except what I gathered on the spot. The Anzacs were to land at Anzac Cove and fight their way across to the mountain range containing Achi Baba.

They had so many casualties that they stood no chance of even holding the positions to which they did advance and had to withdraw to a mere strip of land where I believe they spent a very unpleasant time until the Peninsula was finally evacuated. A Ship named the "River Clyde" was to be run aground at the spot marked on the diagram and the Infantry on
board then had to run down a gangway on the side of the ship and wade ashore. The first Regiment to do this was the Lancashire Fusiliers and they suffered so many casualties from the Turks on the tip of the Cliffs that it was decided finally to award six Victoria Crosses to men of the Regiment.
Here was the first and only incident on record of the actual survivors voting who should receive them, as it was impossible for any particular six men being picked above the others for particular gallantry as all of them were qualified by the bravery and disregard of danger shown in the face of intense rifle and machine gun fire once they set foot on the gangway. After reaching the water they still had to cut their way through barbed wire running yards out into the sea and many were shot while entangled in the wire. The Division Artillery (that's us) were to unload our guns and horses on to flat barges floating off the beaches as soon as the Infantry had got established on top of the cliffs and advanced sufficiently far for us to get our guns in action. The cliffs were so steep that we had to have squads of sailors help us with the horses as well to drag the guns to the top. Luckily there were no Turks firing at us while this operation was going on or we would all have been annihilated. There. were other landing points around the tip of the Peninsula but I am not sure who and where. I believe the French had a landing party on the other side (Asia Minor) of the Dardanelles but not having found any Turks there they were withdrawn and joined the rest of their force. The French main force I believe landed at points up the coast from our landings. The landings had been successfully carried out but at a terrible cost in men and then the fighting started in real earnest.

* * *

I read in one book that the Turks at first only had 2000 men at the tip of the Peninsula and when the landing started they rushed reinforcements down but I can't believe that myself, as our men fought so fiercely that am sure they must have inflicted as many casualties on the Turks as they sustained themselves and as said previously we lost 10,000 men in five days.
The Dublin Fusiliers and Munster Fusiliers after three days' fighting had one Second Lieutenant left of their officers and about 175 men of the two Battalions. They put them together under the command of the Lieutenant and they were officially described as the "Dubsters". The Second Lieutenant (I believe his name was Rooney) was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, the first time in the history of that decoration that a Second Lieutenant had received it and I don't think another has since. Of course one has to remember that steel helmets had not been invented then and all fighting for the first five days was being done in the open with no trenches as we were supposed to advance on Constantinople and put Turkey out of the War .
After five days it was realised we could get no further at the time and everybody dug in and it became trench warfare with a vengeance. We even dug big pits to shelter our horses as they were exposed to fire from the Turks and throughout the rest of the war I did not meet another case where it had become necessary.

While we were there on the Peninsula an amusing thing happened which I will tell you about now. A light Cruiser of the Navy, HMS Triumph was laying close inshore - unloading stores I suppose -when she was torpedoed by a submarine which had avoided the rest of the Navy. As she turned turtle the superstructure stuck in the sand and she remained like that with her keel uppermost. The amusing thing was that most of the crew were able to walk up the side of the boat as she was turning and sat on the keel until they were picked up and did not even wet their feet. Another amazing thing about it was that as she turned turtle, a man who had been trapped below shot up out of the hole the submarine made, by the force of air rushing out, and his life was saved. ( Episode VI -sent 3/7/64)

[Hornspieler]

Episode VII

At the time of the landing I was a Bombardier {in the Artillery that is a man with two
stripes ) and was the Official Rangefinder. That meant I was on the Headquarters Staff
and with the Rangefinding instrument in my charge took ranges to the enemy positions for the guns. I must have been fairly successful at it, as one day the Brigadier Commanding Royal Artillery appeared at our Battery position and asked my OC to instruct me to take ranges all over the Peninsula which could be used for official maps. I remember one range I gave them to a gap in the mountain range and just after some Turks were seen collecting in the gap.
The OC put one gun on it with the range I had given and we could see them through binoculars being scattered in all directions as the shell landed. I gave myself a pat on the back and thought that was a bit of revenge for my 2½ hours in the sea.

The worst part of the campaign was the appalling food we had to put up with during the whole time I was on the Peninsula. Our rations consisted of Tea, Sugar and Tinned Milk, Bully Beef (Corned Beef), Hard Ration Biscuits, Jam, American Streaky Bacon which was appalling and only fit for pigs, and a tinned Vegetable called ".Julienne" Vegetable. It consisted of Potatoes, Carrots, Turnips, Parsnips and Onions; chopped up into little pieces tile size of small dice and had to be soaked in boiling water, when it became as far I was concerned an inedible mess. We had no fresh meat, decent bacon, potatoes, fresh vegetables or fruit.
After we had been landed about two weeks, the authorities managed to establish a Bakery on the beach and we were issued with one pound loaf between sixteen men. To give you an idea how much bread per man that meant, if you can visualise a small tin loaf you sometimes have, that had to be cut into sixteen slices. I was acting Quartermaster at the time and I had to mark each loaf off in sixteen divisions and be careful how I cut it or there would be nothing for the sixteenth man. I used to instruct the cook to soak a certain amount of the biscuit ration every day for about 12 hours and then we would put it into a Dixie-Lid (big oval cooking pot) with a layer of biscuit and a layer of jam until the lid was full and then cover it with another lid and bake it over the fire. That was about the best way we could eat our ration of biscuits and jam which was a common variety of "Plum and Apple".
Plum and Apple was mentioned in one or the Army Songs written during this war. "Oh! Oh! it's a lovely War, What do you want with eggs and ham when you've got Plum and Apple Jam" etc, etc.

We could not improve our rations as there were no Canteens on the Peninsula, at least not while I was there and another thing was that we could buy no cigarettes or tobacco and our ration of cigarettes was 20 per man per week. To get over the match difficulty we cadged a length of old rope cable from the Navy and allowed it to lie smouldering. One length would last a week and we lit our cigarettes from the glowing end. Another shortage was water. as there were only two wells in our possession on the Peninsula and there was no water refining plant which nowadays they use to purify sea water. We were rationed to one pint per man per day and the horses could only be given water between six and seven in the morning and six and seven in the evening. If the horses missed that period they had to go without until the next and in any case they only got about a canvas bucket (holding 2 pints) per horse if they were lucky. So strict were orders on the water supply that a man was stationed with fixed bayonet throughout the 24 hours. Why we never mutinied against the appalling conditions under which we were expected to fight I don't know to this day.

Well life went 0n under these appalling conditions for quite a while and we did not do much firing and the Turks seemed content to let things lie as long as we did not attempt to advance when we got the full blast. I was wounded about a month after we had landed while I was over at Battery Headquarters in a trench. A bullet came through the top part of the earthwork and hit me a smack on the top of the head just above my brain-box. I suppose it was the top of the trench which checked the velocity of the bullet and when it hit me it knocked me to my knees. It was night time and nobody' could see whether it had gone into my head as there was only the blood showing where it had hit me. So I was sent off in a small sort of Tender to Lemnos for treatment.
The MO said next morning “Well you must have a hard head as it appears to have bounced off” although it had left a deep groove where it had landed.The treatment on Lemnos was appalling. We had to sleep sixteen (wounded men) to a Tent with no floor boards and only the rocky earth to lie on. Whereas half a mile away Turkish Prisoners were sleeping half as many in a tent with floor boards and far more comfortable than us. I expect you will think before you have finished reading my "War Memoirs" that I am a bit of a grouser, but I can assure you I was not. When I look back now, it seems impossible that men could have had to put up with such little regard for their health and comfort and still be expected to fight a war . After a week of this purgatory I paraded at night when on the quay when a boat was leaving for the peninsula. I had no papers and when the Military Police on duty at the
boat said "Why, you've still got bandages on your head. ., I said "The Doctor told me to keep them on until the scar had hardened. " So I got away with the bluff.
The treatment on Lemnos was appalling. We had to sleep sixteen (wounded men) to a Tent with no floor boards and only the rocky earth to lie on. Whereas half a mile away Turkish Prisoners were sleeping half as many in a tent with floor boards and far more comfortable than us. I expect you will think before you have finished reading my "War Memoirs" that I am a bit of a grouser, but I can assure you I was not. When I look back now, it seems impossible that men could have had to put up with such little regard for their health and comfort and still be expected to fight a war . After a week of this purgatory I paraded at night when on the quay when a boat was leaving for the peninsula. I had no papers and when the Military Police on duty at the
boat said "Why, you've still got bandages on your head. ., I said "The Doctor told me to keep them on until the scar had hardened. " So I got away with the bluff.
(Episode VII - sent 10/7/64)

[Hornspieler]

[Episode VIII]
When I got back to the battery I learned that in my absence I had been promoted Corporal and Sergeant on the same day and they were just about to strike me off the strength.
About this time an order went to all units to salvage all Jam Tins, old Cartridge Cases.
any bullets which might be lying around, any Shrapnel (that is pieces of shells which had been fired at us and, on bursting, split up into small pieces of metal). We had to keep on collecting these materials and send them to the Dump on the Beach.

I have just said what Shrapnel is or was so-called from the 1914-18 War onwards.
Actually Shrapnel as named before the War was a shell invented by an Army Officer named Shrapnel and was a contrast to shells that the Artillery had fired up to the time his invention was adopted. Up till then shells had been filled with Lyditte (I think that's how to spell it) and burst into fragments on impact and it was hoped maimed men within reach of the exploding area. The Shrapnel Shell instead of containing so much explosive, contained a number of leaden balls about half inch in diameter and were seated in the shell case with resin. The end of the shell had a fuse cap fixed to it and before it was fired the fuse cap was set so that the explosive charge could be ignited so many seconds after it was fired . This was determined by range and elevation. When the fuse exploded the charge the fuse cap blew off and the leaden bullets were forced out of the shell. The idea was to explode the shell in the air and the bullets scattered over a wide area wounding any men who may be within the area. There were 365 bullets in an 18 pdr shell so you can see they were a useful ammunition, but with the introduction of Trench Warfare their usefulness disappeared.
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Well let's get back to the Jam Tins. What was happening was they were being used to make Bombs. They had a fuse tube fixed into the centre of the lid filled with a length of fuse material and this connected with the explosive charge. The tin was filled up with the bits and pieces of metal and they became the first bombs used in our war. To ignite them the Bomb thrower had to be smoking a cigarette which he used to set the fuse smouldering and then threw the bomb into the enemy trenches. Whether they caused any damage or not I don't know but I know that on occasions the Turks would wave a flag after the bomb had landed which on a rifle range means a miss and a joker on our side would throw a full tin of Jam and the Turks would then put up a White Disk which on the range means a Bullseye. I imagine however that they were the first bombs used by our forces in 1914- 18 War. A Lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment got the Victoria Cross for throwing bombs for a period of 12 Hours (I think it was) without stopping. He must have had more than his Cigarette Ration to do it. After we had settled down to Trench Warfare the fighting also slowed down and then the Manchester Regt were ordered to attack and capture a trench which would have enabled us to straighten out our line but they lost a lot of men and had to return to their own trench in disorder. As a result of this unsuccessful attack a lot of dead were left lying between the two lines and every effort to recover the bodies was beaten back by severe fire from the Turks and the bodies laid there in the blazing sun for days.
The smell over the whole peninsula was awful and the Infantry Commander ordered a Battalion of Gurkhas to proceed along the beach at nightfall, climb the cliffs and enter the trench that way. These tough little Gurkhas set off with their Kukris in their mouths and entered the trench. When the Turks realised in the dark who they were they fled for their lives and the trench was taken without them having a single casualty.
We were then able to tidy up the dead and life smelled sweeter. Round about this time a heavy gun on the Asiatic side of the Dardanells started shelling us during the day and as they could observe every spot on the peninsula it made things awkward.
I remember on one occasion when it was shelling the beach I and other Quartermaster Sergeants were at the Ordnance Depot to get some stores. The whole Depot Staff dived for their dugouts and we QMSs decided it would be an excellent time to help ourselves to some stores. I lifted several pairs of binoculars and enough new shirts to equip half my Battery who by then were getting in a fairly disreputable state. I don't suppose anybody in the Stores suffered for shortage of stores as when we evacuated Gallipoli all stores went up in smoke.

EPISODE IX
On the 8th .August 1915 we were ordered to run our guns out of their pits and infiltrate the Turkish front in front of the trench. They did the same and infiltrated our front.
This was done to make the Turks think we were about to attack so that they would be busy drawing up plans to repel us while at the same time, two more Divisions were to land at Suvla Bay further up the coast and in their rear. Again the idea was alright and the troops landed but through bad instructions and lack of sensible command they reached a certain point and stuck there. So much for that operation but it led to my being wounded for the second time. As our guns were out or their pits we had to man-handle Ammunition from the pits to the guns and one of our gunners was wounded by a rifle bullet. I went to help him and bandaged his thigh with my field dressing and asked for stretcher bearers. While I was doing this the man who got him must have taken a bead on me and a bullet hit me at the top of my right shoulder and went right down to the base of my spine. I was useless from then on and the stretcher bearers had to take me away first, as I was in a more serious condition than the man I had dressed. That was the end of my Gallipoli campaign as I was put aboard a hospital ship and sailed for England. I was in a pretty poor condition on the ship as apart from being paralysed and unable to move I also had dysentery develop which must have been building up on the Peninsula before I left. I was fed with milk and water for six weeks -one part Tinned Milk to about 10 parts water and that was all I was allowed. I was in hospital for about three months altogether and had the bullet removed.
The bullet was lying in a tin tray alongside my bed and when Lord Stamfordham, the Equerry to the Prince of Wales was visiting the hospital, he spotted it and asked me to tell him about it. He then took it away, saying that he would get it mounted for me and returned it a few days later, fitted in a solid gold cartridge case,. which I will show you one of these days.
For the next month I had all sorts of electric treatment and massage before I was considered by the Medical Authorities (but not me) as fit to be discharged. Believe it or not I weighed 7 stone 6 lbs when I came out of hospital and was in France three weeks later -but that's another story. (Episode IX -sent 17/7/64)