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Archiver > GREATWAR > 2001-08 > 0997126685


From: "Tom Tulloch-Marshall" <>
Subject: Re: [WW1] Re: Royal Fusiliers
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 20:38:05 +0100
References: <200108050629.f756Tbt31107@lists7.rootsweb.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20010806061707.00a5aa60@pop.clara.net>


"I always understood the first landings on Gallipoli were on the 25th April
by the Aussies at 4.30am and New Zealanders at about 9am Am I right or am I
wrong? >June Castle, Auckland, NZ"
>
June - It is dangerous to try to be over-precise with these things as
inevitably the "facts" owe much to the post event recollections of those who
took part in what were often very confused happenings; - and the "confusion"
regarding Gallipoli has probably been greatly added to by "history according
to Mel Gibson" (!)

You appear in fact to be partly correct -

The Official History Of The War, "Military Operations Gallipoli" volume 1
(Historical Section Committee Of Imperial Defence, William Heinemann,
London, 1936) says that the "cover force" of 1,500 men from the 9th, 10th,
and 11th Australian Infantry Battalions cast their tows fifty yards from
"Anzac" at 4:25am on the 25th and that 4,000 Australian Troops were ashore
by 5am, and another 4,000 by 8am. - "General Birdwood signalled that he was
landing one and a half battalions of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade ..."
at "about 10:45am" - but it's not entirely clear whether those were the
first NZ troops ashore.

Landing time of the first British Troops is equally imprecise, - the
trawlers and cutters taking them onto Y Beach were under the cliffs there at
4:15am - so effectively you seem to be looking at virtually simultaneous
landings by Aussies and Brits. The Off-Hist is delightfully vague about the
2nd Royal Fusiliers, but it places two Companies, Battalion HQ, and the
machine-gun section at the top of the cliffs on X Beach "by" 6:30 am on the
25th.

regards
--
Tom Tulloch-Marshall
Great War Military Research

http://www.btinternet.com/~prosearch

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