Tracing Your Great War Ancestors Read online

  FOOD AND DRINK

  Food was plentiful if monotonous, but water was often in very limited supply. This is a constituent complaint found in memoirs and in oral history interviews with survivors. Even after sixty years Lieutenant R. Laidlaw remained critical of the arrangements made to support the troops during the Battle for Gully Ravine – a 2-mile-long dry valley on the western side of Gallipoli – on 28 June:

  We had plenty of ammunition, brought up earlier … but most of the men had drunk their water during the strenuous day and were now very thirsty – and thirst is not a pleasant thing, especially when you are serving in a sandy and hot country. All along the trench I could hear cries of ‘water, water’ and water there was none … There was none even for the wounded men and somehow I failed to get any message through to the destroyers when their boat came ashore to pick up the wounded.

  DISEASE AND SANITATION

  After Turkish bullets, the most serious killer of men was the tiny microbe that causes dysentery. The disease occurs when sanitation is poor, as was the case at Gallipoli. Even as recently as the Boer War it had been a major killer of soldiers, but it was not a serious problem on the Western Front, where strict measures were taken to ensure good sanitation in the trenches and proper care for those unfortunates who contracted the disease.

  A major problem was the lack of fresh water for the troops. Here two water carriers bring precious supplies through a support trench.

  The authorities were well aware of the need for latrine discipline, but Gallipoli was a battlefield where every inch was fought over, so there was not the space, let alone the disinfectants, to provide proper sanitation. Even toilet paper was in short supply.

  Little effort was made to control dysentery. The priority for medical aid was those wounded in battle. As well as the appalling latrines (where the disease bred), the food was poor. Clement Attlee drily commented in his memoirs that dysentery was ‘a complaint for which our diet of bully beef, biscuit and tea without milk was not very suitable’. At the end of July Captain Attlee himself contracted dysentery: he was carried unconscious to the beach and sent to Malta to recover.

  Sergeant H. Keighley of the Royal Artillery commented that dysentery

  was the biggest scourge we had on Gallipoli … I got dysentery very badly. I hadn’t the strength to go up and down the cliff, across the ravine and up the hill to get to the Medical Officer (he was on the other side) and in the end I lost two or three stones. It was dreadful! I practically had to sleep alongside the latrines, my tummy had so much trouble.

  Some men were affected so severely that they fouled themselves, thus undermining the sense of self-worth that is vital to good morale.

  Another scourge that veterans remembered to their dying days was the flies, which initially emerged from the putrefying corpses in no man’s land to make men’s lives a living hell. Gunner Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg of the Royal Field Artillery wrote that:

  We were invaded by millions of flies. There was no escape from these beastly insects. They swarmed around everywhere. Drinking and eating was a real nightmare and I avoided no matter how hungry I was the rice pudding, which was served up frequently mixed with currants and dehydrated fruit. It was difficult to distinguish currants from flies. They looked alike in this repulsive mixture. Immediately the lid was taken off the dixie the flies would swarm down and settle on the rim in a cluster and many of them would fall into the pudding … The ceilings of our bivouacs, a waterproof sheet, was black with flies crawling over each other and falling on top of one as you tried to rest.

  In addition, dead soldiers became a real problem. There were several unofficial truces to allow each side to gather bodies from between the two front lines in no man’s land. But in particularly hard-fought battles this was not always possible. At Hill 60 Francis Twistleton of the Otago Mounted Rifles found that in the trench in which he was stationed ‘in many places the parapet and parados … was made up of dead men. Turks of course: the stench was appalling. I felt as though I could scrape the smell of the dead men out of my mouth and throat and stomach in chunks.’ He was forced to report sick, although he was not actually sick, because he could keep no food down: ‘I seemed to live on the smell of dead men and it was a very hard week.’

  Less of a problem but still deeply unpleasant were the infestations of lice, which lived in the uniforms. On the Western Front there were delousing centres, which killed the lice, but there was no equivalent in the Dardanelles, so men spent hour after hour trying to kill the lice and the eggs they laid.

  By October the health of the men had reached such a low point that their commanders were seriously worried that they would be unable to effectively repel any Turkish attacks, let alone mount any further offensive operations. As Peter Hart noted, ‘the strength of the army was literally being leached away’. It was perhaps fortunate then that conditions in the enemy’s lines were almost as bad.

  REST AND RECREATION

  Perhaps surprisingly, it was not all bad. In common with soldiers through the ages, the men tried to make the best of their circumstances. In the midst of the torrential rains of late October, Private Ernest Lye described his section:

  By rights I suppose we should have all been miserable, for we were wet through and very cold. The younger ones talked of the feeds they were going to have (I had a craving for hot muffins with piles of steaming butter), while the older ones talked of the pints they would drink when they got back to their favourite pub. Someone started a song which was taken up by all of us, until you would have thought we hadn’t care in the world.

  During the summer a favourite pastime was to cool off in the sea, although even here there was the chance of being hit by a stray Turkish shell. Most men thought it worth the risk to feel clean again.

  SCIMITAR HILL

  On 21 August the war journalist Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett observed the doomed British attack on Scimitar Hill. This was the last major battle on the peninsula. By now Ashmead-Bartlett was bitterly disillusioned with how the campaign had been conducted.

  Suddenly at 3.15pm the bombardment switched off the enemy’s lines and passed on to his artillery positions and communications. South-east of Chocolate Hill I saw long lines of our infantry (the 34th Brigade of the 11th Division) advance to the attack of the Turkish lines in the Biyuk Anafarta valley. Immediately the machine guns on Chocolate Hill concentrated on the parapets of the enemy’s trenches to keep his infantry under cover. But the range was rather long and I do not think the Turks suffered much. In fact, when the 34th Brigade went forward I could see the Turkish soldiers standing fully exposed above the top of their sand-bags to fire on our lines. The 34th did capture one trench, but this seemed to be the extent of the success gained in this quarter. The 32nd and 33rd Brigades of the 11th Division should have supported this attack, but immediately after the start the line seemed to converge towards Hill ‘W’, on the lower spurs of which masses of our men remained throughout the afternoon, apparently quite unable to advance further. Here they were exposed to a withering fire from the trenches on Hill ‘W’, and also from those in the plain. I could follow the movements of small numbers of troops rushing forward only to be shot down and this disorganised mixture of battalions never regained any cohesion, and suffered many casualties.

  The advance of our infantry caused the Turkish artillery to switch off most of their guns from Chocolate Hill to this new target, and it was possible to obtain a better view of what was passing. Sometime after 3.30 my attention was attracted by a sudden rush of our infantry (the 87th Brigade of the 29th Division, 2nd South Wales Borderers, 1st K.O.S.B.s [King’s Own Scottish Borderers], 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, and 1st Border Regiment) up the north-west slope of Scimitar Hill. Rushing with incredible speed through the smouldering scrub, this mass of khaki figures reached the bare sand-covered glacis near the top, charged right over it regardless of shells and bullets, and disappeared into the trenches.

  From Chocolate Hill it looked as if the hill had been wo
n, but only for a few minutes. Suddenly the Turkish artillery swept the crest of Scimitar Hill with shrapnel, the shells bursting incessantly, until a white canopy enveloped the summit. I watched some of our infantry chase the Turks down the reverse slope, but they were either killed or forced to retire from the fire from another trench or redoubt beyond, the existence of which was unsuspected. The tremendous concentration of shrapnel was too much for the shattered battalions. Soon I perceived khaki figures leaping from the trenches and dashing for cover to the scrub from which they had just emerged. The whole bare surface of the glacis remained dotted with our dead and wounded.

  Meanwhile, another attack suddenly developed up the south-west slope of Scimitar Hill. (It was the 86th Brigade of the 29th Division, Royal Fusiliers, 1st Munster Fusiliers, 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, and 1st Dublin Fusiliers). These battalions, on leaving the trenches and entering the bush, found themselves intermingled with the men of the 11th Division, who should have advanced against the Turkish trenches in the Biyuk Anafarta valley more to the right, but they had gradually edged off to the left to obtain cover from the fire from the Turks in the valley, and were now in scattered groups all round Scimitar Hill.

  When the leading battalion of the 86th Brigade attempted to continue its advance, it was apparently joined by many men of the 11th Division. I saw a dense mass of infantry, in no sort of formation, surging slowly up the south-west slope of Scimitar Hill. The confusion was awful, and, to add to it, at this moment the scrub began to blaze again. The disorganised soldiers vanished amidst the dense clouds of smoke and flame, and shortly afterwards reappeared on the bare, yellow glacis. Once again the Turkish artillery opened up with salvoes of shrapnel. The mass wavered, then broke, and men streamed back down the hill, leaving the summit still more thickly strewn with dead and dying. I watched the wounded endeavouring to crawl back to cover, if they did reach the scrub, they perished in the flames.

  In fact, Scimitar Hill was now fairly ablaze. The attack had failed lamentably, but was not yet over …

  The only reinforcement which had reached the Peninsula since August 6th was the 2nd Mounted Division under General Peyton, which had arrived from Egypt without their horses. It was, throughout the afternoon, held in reserve behind Lala Baba and now, when the attack of the 29th Division had finally failed, de Lisle decided to throw it into the conflict.

  It was sometime after 4.30 p.m. when my attention was suddenly attracted by the Turkish gunners lengthening their range and concentrating their fire on the Salt Lake. On moving to the rear of Chocolate Hill, I saw a mass of men advancing in artillery formation across the lake. The Turkish batteries plastered the gallant Yeomen with shrapnel, causing some casualties, but they never lost their formation and kept steadily on until they obtained cover behind Chocolate Hill.

  Here the 2nd Brigade under Lord Longford moved towards the left to a position in front of Scimitar Hill. Its advance was slow, hampered by the burning scrub and the confused jumble of men of the 29th and 11th Divisions, who had been driven off the summit.

  The 1st Brigade under General Wiggin seems to have remained behind Chocolate Hill without orders, and to have taken but small part in the engagement. The 4th Brigade under General Taylor moved to the support of the 11th Division in the plain south-east of Chocolate Hill, and the 3rd Brigade under General McKenna, V.C., also moved to the south, but seems to have been held in reserve. It was nearly 7 p.m., and night was already setting in, when the 2nd Brigade reached the foot of Scimitar Hill.

  Then came the final scene of this tragic day. It was almost impossible to see what was happening through the gathering gloom and smoke, only relieved by the bursting shells and flames. Just as darkness settled over the scene, I distinguished a mass of men surging once again towards the summit of this dreadful hill. I have no idea who took part in this final advance. Probably the Dorsets and Yeomanry Brigade were joined by the remnants of the 29th and men of the 11th Divisions who were lying in the scrub at its foot. The mob surged upwards. The roar of the guns, the crackle of the rifle fire, the burr of the machine guns, was incessant, and then these blurred khaki figures disappeared in the darkness and smoke and were lost to view. Once again we thought that the hill had been won. But in reality it was impossible to hold the crest under the withering fire of shrapnel, rifle, and machine guns. The whole position was evacuated during the night. Not a yard of the enemy’s trenches had been taken.

  I left the battlefield at 8 p.m., stripped bare, with nothing left but my trousers and shirt. It came about in this way. About 5.30, the Turkish artillery fire on Chocolate Hill having diminished, I endeavoured to set up my cinema above the parapet of the partly destroyed trench to get some pictures of the wonderful panorama of the shellfire and burning scrub. The gunners were on me like a flash. I could not believe that they could have picked up a target so quickly. One shell whizzed past my head and stuck in the back of the trench without exploding. Then came another. I saw a bright flash and found myself in total darkness. I struggled to get clear but realised that I was buried. Shortly afterwards a spot of light appeared and I became conscious that I was being dug out. My benefactor turned out to be a soldier who had seen my mishap and who immediately ran to my assistance. I found the fuse of a high explosive shell lying on my legs but I had not received a scratch. My belongings did not fare so well. Owing to the heat, I had taken off my coat and placed it beside me with my small camera, walking-stick, field glasses, and water-bottle. They were probably blown to smithereens, and, in any case, disappeared for ever. The infernal old cinema, of which I was now heartily tired, the cause of all my troubles, had, of course, survived and I was reluctantly compelled to drag it back to camp.

  Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles

  (Hutchinson, 1928)

  A sap at the top of Shrapnel Valley. The valley was the main route up from the beach area to the Anzac front line on the ridge.

  Chapter 3

  GETTING STARTED

  This chapter offers basic guidance for readers interested in researching either individual soldiers or the units in which they served in Gallipoli.

  ONLINE RESOURCES

  There are four major data providers with significant First World War content online: Ancestry, Findmypast, Military Genealogy and The National Archives. Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) is undoubtedly the best place to start. It is a subscription site: you pay for a year’s unlimited access to the data. If you are not already a subscriber, it is worth trying the free fourteen-day trial. Alternatively, access is free at many local libraries. However, Ancestry is of little use if your interest is not primarily genealogical. With the exception of the Medal Index Cards, much the same material is available on Findmypast (www.findmypast.co.uk), although it also has one or two unique resources of its own. At the time of writing (2014) the Military and Naval Archives website (www.NMarchives.com), from Naval & Military Press is about to launch, promising access to a number of First World War resources, including war diaries and medal rolls. The National Archives provides online access to service records for men who served in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, and for the few women who joined the services during the war. There is also the Forces War Records. It is hard to know exactly what is available for the First World War, but it is unlikely it will have any of the key databases.

  Not everything is online by any means. Particularly if you decide to do an in-depth study of an individual, or research a particular unit or action, you will probably need to use original papers, letters and files that are only to be found in an archive. If you want to know more about what archives are and how to use them, a series of Quick Animated Guides is available at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/quick-animated-guides.htm.

  There are three major types of archive with some overlap between their holdings. The most important is The National Archives (TNA) in Kew, which has almost all the surviving service and operational records for the three services plus much else besides. In this book any records mentioned a
re held by The National Archives (TNA) unless indicated otherwise. There is an excellent website – www.nationalarchives.gov.uk – which will help you find the records you are looking for and prepare for a visit. In particular, Research Signposts, and the more detailed Research Guides, explain the records very simply. Find them at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records.

  The records themselves are described via the Discovery catalogue, which lists all eleven million documents available for researchers at Kew. The descriptions are often pretty general, but should be good enough for you to work out which are likely to be useful to you.

  Regimental and service museums and archives have records relating to their particular regiment or service. The big service museums are the Imperial War Museum (for all services), the National Army Museum, the Royal Naval Museum (officially the National Museum of the Royal Navy (Portsmouth)), and the RAF Museum.

  In addition, most regiments have their own regimental museum and archive, although their archives are increasingly likely to be found at the appropriate county record office. These archives may include collections of regimental orders, personal papers and photographs, war diaries (which may duplicate those at Kew), regimental magazines, registers and records which TNA for one reason or another did not want. All these archives have very different collections, so you may strike lucky or go away almost empty-handed. Most welcome visitors, but you usually have to make an appointment. The Army Museum Ogilby Trust maintains a very good website (www.armymuseums.org.uk) that links to museum websites and provides details about individual regimental museums.