The Landings at Suvla Bay - 6 August 1915

On the morning of the 6th August 1915, soldiers from the 6th Battalion, The Border Regiment rose early. They were camped on Imbros, in poor conditions. It was hot, and many of them had become sick, reducing their battalion strength. Today they had been on exercise, practising and preparing for an imminent sea landing.

By midday, the men were informed that the landing would take place that night. There was little sleep, no doubt the forthcoming landings and what to expect were playing on their minds. Many were also suffering with gastric trouble and the effects of cholera injections. 



The loading of the soldiers onto the lighters and destroyers was haphazard, but by evening time, the men had embarked and were on their way towards their objective. The 6th Battalion were to be the Divisional Reserve, to move by Lala Baba, supporting the 32nd Brigade whose objective was 'Chocolate Hill.' 

The landings began at 10pm, with 20,000 troops set down at Suvla Bay with virtually no Turkish opposition other than sniper fire. But the 6th Battalion, as part of the 33rd Brigade, landing in the dark, were further south and nearer to ANZAC cove than planned. Already things were not running to plan...


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adaptable Bunnies!

Image
The Adaptable Knitted Rabbit Trail... As a Military Museum, we are not normally associated with these cottontail creatures. Especially the knitted variety. But what we do pride ourselves in is engaging with our visitors. And at this time of year our woolly friends like to make an appearance for our younger audience. Our original Easter holiday activity was a quiz and trail around the Museum but we soon found that our younger visitors over the holidays tended to be under ten years old, with many even younger. So our trail was not suitable. What the youngsters really wanted to do was something a little bit more basic.  Welcome to our annual Easter trail. The wee bunnies were created by my mum (thanks mum! x) after we decided that looking for things for a younger audience would be fun. We first trialled the idea, and it proved to be an immediate success. Plus the 12 little rabbits could easily slip into our display cases and the trail can be changed each year to offer ...
Read more

The Return of the Rabbits

Image
It doesn't seem five minutes since our knitted friends made an appearance on one of my blog posts. But then in April last year who would have thought that we would be in a lockdown 12 months later?   Our wee bunnies have once again become the theme of our social media over the Easter weekend. A little bit of fun both for staff and our virtual audience.  Several weeks ago we realised that we were in the same position as last year and would not be able to host an Easter trail for visitors in the Museum. However, last year we realised just before lockdown1, managed to photograph rabbits and put together a family-friendly trail before we retreated to our own homes. This year, it was not so easy and photographing the rabbits had to be undertaken during a weekly check of the Museum. So thanks to Angela who took on the challenge of photographing the bunnies round the gallery and then came up with the 'Elf on the Shelf' idea, pulling together a week of cheeky bunny posts. Working...
Read more

Re-Opening Plans are Afoot...

Image
W e are currently looking at plans to reopen. As a charity, reliant on income from admissions, it has been a difficult few months. We have missed two periods when we receive quite a few visitors - Easter and May half term. Although we have accessed the Govt's furlough scheme and the small business grant, deferred HMRC payments and have rates relief for this year, things are tough.  So we are keen to reopen as soon as it is safe to do so. Government guidance is currently suggesting 4th July, but this is not definate. However, we need to start planning and working towards an opening date - the 4th July is the earliest date that we can go for. Of course, reopening will not be straight forward. We sit within the English Heritage managed site of Carlisle Castle and need to work with them to ensure that visitors receive the same message from both organisations. There are open spaces on-site, but we have a small building. We need to reassure visitors that we have their safety at heart bef...
Read more