Really Big Events

Introduction

Be safe. You begin…and I go to sleep.

Rosemary’s message. (Time difference: 10 hours)

Day Two (16 September): Helles 1

After the Dardanelles ferry crossing, our first in-depth stop is a review of the Dardanelles naval attacks with focus on the disastrous 18 March 1915 tumult. Onshore, Ottoman batteries, as well as newly laid Turkish underwater mines, hammered allied steel to misshapen form. Three vessels, the French battleship Bouvet, and two British pre-dreadnought battleships, Irresistible and Ocean are sunk.

If the Allies had been successful in forcing a passage through the strait, reaching Constantinople, there would never have been a land campaign. Allied success might have taken the Ottoman Empire out of the war gaining, for the Allies, a supply route to Russia. But there was no success…no Constantinople…the landings commenced in April.

As details are provided I am pleased by all that I have retained over time. True enough – this Dardanelles naval battle is easiest for me to tangle my head around. The time – short (not back and forth over months), places and actions – familiar, the distance between the shorelines of the strait – narrow. I can see all the features and adding to my imagination the passing of modern freighters and container ships adds to my visioning abilities.

Several fortifications are being restored with newly rebuilt structures atop old familiar ruins. These sites feel careful and modern rather than…what once was left to time. Perhaps in the ruins there was more accuracy – closer to the time of study? Sedd el Bahr (Seddülbahir) fort is not the eye captivating ruins it once was with its now recreated stonework and interpretive panels. Later this day we will see previously abandoned French guns no longer in brambles and under other natural cover. No warnings about vipers required – their terrain is gone. The guns stand with newly built walls and pathways – as if props – their previous earthly reclamation far more interesting. Time though will improve these new sites as the surrounding area grows to welcome them and the current starkness replaced with character.

At V Beach – one of my favorite stops – we wander towards the River Clyde site. I am at first greeted by a beach volleyball net and after Sedd el Bahr wonder if this site has also changed? Fortunately, the landing site I seek is to the left. As we walk there is chatter of a new resort. Though it is hard to imagine beachgoers frolicking in the sand and water with the knowledge of the bloodshed that occurred here…for others – this is their home. Other sites of devastation have been rebuilt and repurposed. Imagine if London, Berlin, Normandy, Dieppe or Ypres were not? Commemorations remain – ruined churches and cathedrals in homage to what once was. It is important to remember. I doubt a day goes by without Turkish families recalling their Gallipoli battles…their ata, dede, nemen, their soyad.

Standing at V Beach, with the gentle lapping at the water’s edge, we hear the costly story of the British collier and “Trojan Horse” SS River Clyde and its 2,000 soldier/sailor occupants. On this bit of embattled shoreline, six individuals performed the deeds that were recognized with the award of the Victoria Cross. Many soldiers and sailors did not survive here. The River Clyde however survived being refloated in 1919 continuing in Spanish service as the Angela and later Maruja y Aurora until scrapped in 1966.

At the River Clyde site personal quotes are first read aloud adding to our understanding of this place. Words of the 1915 witnesses are passed around for individuals to read while laminated images pass from hand to hand. After a brief visit to V Beach cemetery we climb a rough path, difficult to scale in places, to the Helles Memorial, where I, at long last, find and visit with the name of F.W. Stacey of the Royal Naval Division and Chilliwack, British Columbia.

In 2012 the memorial was undergoing restoration by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The names of the Royal Naval Division were covered at that time by work materials. Sub-Lieutenant Frank Wendell Stacey is also commemorated on Chilliwack’s local memorial. Stacey served with the Hood Battalion and after recovery from wounds received in the Dardanelles returned to the peninsula where he was killed 4 June 1915. After these respects I find the name of Hamo Sassoon the brother of poet Sigfried, a new interest for me to learn what Hamo’s famous brother may have written at the time of his loss*. Others become interested and wander over to see the name. Hamo Sassoon served with the Royal Engineers and died 1 November 1915 aboard the SS Kildonan Castle after having his leg amputated.

Outside the Helles Memorial we eat lunch in the shade where we sit within our thoughts including the trails to come. Twenty minutes pass….we receive our notice…on to Lancashire Landing. More rusted Great War iron seems exposed here than previous as far more parts lie in sharp and corroded scaled contrast to the fluidity of the waves. The pier posts remain and provide watchful stands for gulls and a single cormorant. Our next climb – the difference between a scramble and a cliff? You can climb a scramble. At times I need help, but I largely ascend on my own until the slope suggests otherwise. I am at the top to see the craters left from three mines as well as the water reservoirs. We cross a 4’-5’ concrete plank – 2’ wide with 10′ drops to either side. Good gosh so good to be here.

Our remaining day takes us to hop on hop off points of interest. At the Turkish Memorial we learn about the structure of Turkish family names courtesy of our Turkish guide Bulent. Our group has, for some 5-6 hours, heavily uploaded all that there is to learn here. Our hosts recognize when the well is perhaps, not dry but soaked for the day. We need refreshing and inevitably after wandering a museum at Krithia of rusted debris from the battlefield purchase ice cream and tea. To my great delight I am gifted a small Turkish teaspoon from the café. After a day of really big events it is nice to know the small and simple things still fit in.

*To My Brother

Give me your hand, my brother, search my face;  
Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame;  
For we have made an end of all things base.  
We are returning by the road we came.  

Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead,
And I am in the field where men must fight.  
But in the gloom I see your laurell’d head  
And through your victory I shall win the light.

For Hamo from Sigfried.

From notes written 16 September 2025

—SNIP—