The SS Nile on Route to Gallipoli

The 1/6th Bn The XXth The Lancashire Fusiliers were on the SS.Nile

The 1/6th Lancashire Fusiliers of the 125th Brigade,The East Lancashire Division began to embark at Alexandria on 1 May 1915.
The first transports left next day, and the last on 6 May. 14,224 men of the Division landed at Cape Helles.
The Division was involved in three notable attempts to break out of the Helles bridgehead to capture the dominating heights
around the village of Krithia. These attacks took place on 6-8 May (in which only the Lancashire Fusiliers Brigade of the Division took part),
4 June and 6-13 August. The last of these is known officially as the battle of Krithia Vineyard,
which gives some impression of the relatively small areas being contested so violently.
It was undertaken not only to try to capture ground but to divert
Turk attention from a large British landing further up the coast at Suvla Bay – an enterprise which failed, and ultimately led to the decision to evacuate the hopeless position on Gallipoli.
By mid August the East Lancashire Division, through battle casualties and sickness, was down
to little more than one third of its normal establishment.

A SELECTION OF TODMORDEN MEN WHO SERVED
KING AND COUNTRY IN THE GREAT WAR
with extracts from
"Todmorden and the Great War 1914-1918, a Local Record"
by John A. Lee
Published by Waddington & Sons Todmorden 1922

"These found glory in the plain path of duty"

Fus Albert Saunders MM
1/6th Lancashire Fusiliers.

Presentation Gold Watch
by Public Subscription from the the people of Todmorden to Fus Albert Saunders MM 1/6th Lancashire Fusiliers.
"In recognition by the people of Todmorden for his gallantry bringing in numerous wounded men whist under fire at Ypres.
He had already survived the action at Gallipoli"
(this watch is now owned by Joe Eastwood see locker page 3)

Company Sgt. Major Bradshaw Allister D.C.M.
1st/6th. Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers
He was awarded the D.C.M. for good leading of his platoon on 4th June 1915 south of Krithia, (Dardanelles) Gallipoli
under heavy rifle and shrapnel fire, to take a Turkish trench. He cleared one flank himself, killing eight Turks.
He survived the war and was presented with his medal at Todmorden Town Hall on 30th November 1915.

Sergeant Arthur Taylor
Lancashire Fusiliers
Sergeant Taylor was killed in action in France 13th June 1917, aged 20 years. He was born, one of twins, in 1896, the son of
Joshua and Mary Taylor. Mary did not survive the birth. Arthur's twin sister was Lily, and his older brothers and sisters were
Robert, Betsy Hannah, Matilda, Robert and Annie. Annie lived to celebrate her 100th birthday some 75 years after Arthur died.

When the news of Arthur's death arrived the family was devastated. My mother, who was five years old at the time,
could remember the day clearly.
His older brother Robert locked himself in an outbuilding on his farm at Clinton and wouldn't come out for two days.
His mother's unmarried sister, Fanny, who had helped to bring him up, was never the same again and it was said she died of a broken heart.

He is also remembered with pride in the Cloughfoot Chapel burial ground Peace perfect Peace
Mary wife of Joshua Taylor of Cloughfoot who died 22nd September 1896 aged 38 years.
Elizabeth Ann wife of the above who died 10th August 1913 aged 60 years
Also Sergeant Arthur Taylor Lancashire Fusiliers the beloved son of Joshua and Mary Taylor who was killed in France 13th June 1917
in his 21st year. Also Joshua Taylor who died 9th February 1919 aged 63 years

Sergeant Taylor has no known grave. He is remembered at Loos Memorial, Pas de Calais, France,
which commemorates over 20,000 men
who have no known grave. 172 of these memorials are for men from the Lancashire Fusiliers.

IN 1977 John Bagot, the then editor of the Middleton Guardian, was asked about his memories of growing up in the town. This was his reply...

"One thing that has always stuck in my mind was during the First World War. As a boy I saw a postman sitting on the kerb at the top of Cheapside, crying and sobbing like a child and wiping his tears away with a big red and white handkerchief. He had been delivering war office (death) telegrams to nearby cottages.

"As he cried the women in their houses were screaming, except one white-faced, shawled and clogged old lady who sat on the flags next to the postman and simply held his hand."

What the late John Bagot describes so vividly is the news returning to the town of the catastrophic local losses at Gallipoli in 1915.

As reported last week, around 250 Middleton territorials had volunteered for service overseas at the outbreak of WW1. They became part of the 1/6th Lancashire Fusiliers battalion and we pick up their story as they enter the maelstrom of the campaign to defeat the Turks on the small peninsula of the Dardanelles called Gallipoli.

The disaster of the campaign has been well documented over the years, not least by the Australians. Their sacrifices, fighting for the first time under their own colours, resulted in a huge step towards the establishment of Australia's own national identity and international recognition.

However, the fact is often overlooked that the British and French were just as deeply committed. We suffered 65,000 dead and wounded, the French 27,000 and the Australians 26,000.

The invasion of Gallipoli was planned after the Turks entered the war on the side of the Germans in late 1914. If the straights of the Dardanelles were conquered, we could have warships in Constantinople in days and deliver a quick and resounding blow to the Turks, while also opening another vital link with our Russian allies via the Black Sea.

In principle, the idea (in which Winston Churchill, then at the Admiralty, was a major player) was sound. In practice, things went wrong from the start.

It had initially been hoped that the navy could deal with the clearing of the straights themselves and sail victoriously into Constantinople. They would bombard resistance at the gateway to this narrow sea waterway (Gallipoli) and surge through. However, brave resistance and mines foiled the scheme and a call was made for a land force to deal with the Turkish troops fighting so tenaciously.

On April 25, 1915, 30,000 allied soldiers would be landed on Gallipoli, but many never even reached the beach. A regular, or professional, battalion of The Lancashire Fusiliers was dropped in the shallows only to run into belts of barbed wire laid below the waterline. While trapped on the wire, they were slaughtered by machine gun fire from the cliffs surrounding the bay. The battalion was to win six Victoria Crosses "before breakfast" in successfully fighting for control of the beach head.

Among these professional soldiers were a number of Middleton men who survived the landing, but the likes of Private Herbert Simpson, of Mills Hill Road, and Lance Corporal John William Horrocks were to pay the ultimate sacrifice later in the campaign

Despite some early signs of promise, and a number of lost opportunities, the situation on Gallipoli soon came to mirror the stalemate on the Western Front - men sat in trenches just a few dozen yards apart and mounting costly attack and counter-attack against heavily defended positions.

The only hope now was that sheer volume of numbers might tip the balance; and so it was that the 42nd East Lancashire Division, including the Middleton Territorials, found themselves moved from Cairo and rowed ashore in the evening of May 5.

Unlike their professional compatriots, the landing of the Lancashire territorials passed without incident. But their good fortune wasn't to last, as the Middletonians found themselves rushed into front-line trenches and going "over the top" within less than 24 hours.

"In the morning, about 11 o'Clock, we made an attack across open country but we were swept down by heavy machine gun fire and we lost heavily," writes Private Walter Hosker to his father at Pool Bank Street, Rhodes.

Corporal William Aspden, another Middleton man, who worked on the trams at home, writes to his wife: "By gum, it was like hell. Bullets were whistling all around me and shells were bursting. It was murder. Our officers are a credit to England."

The 1/6th Lancashire Fusiliers (made up of the Middleton lads and fellow part-time soldiers from Rochdale and Todmorden) gained 400 yards of ground; the greatest advance made by any unit that day. More importantly, the ground was held.

Still, it had proved costly and four Middletonians were among the dead, with many more wounded. Among the fatalities were Percy Beaman, a 21-year-old parishioner of All Saints Church who lived at Rhodes, and Sergeant James Burgess of Middleton Junction, who worked at JW Lees Brewery.

Around 50 more local lads were to follow in their footsteps before the year was out, and a large number of them were to be killed just weeks later, on June 4, attacking the same objective as this first bloody charge - the small village of Krithia.

Krithia was an important strategic objective that lay just below the commanding heights of Gallipoli. From there you could see what was going on on most of the peninsula.

This time the Middleton men would have to charge across about 100 yards of open land through artillery and machine gun fire and into belts of barbed wire. It was carnage and 10 local men were to die, including the Connolly brothers - Frank was aged just 19 and Thomas was 26. They lived in Sadler Street with their parents and siblings.

Private Walter Hosker picks up the story of the attack: "We captured and killed some thousands in a bayonet charge. At night the Turks tried to retake this trench and came up in droves with fixed bayonets shouting 'Allah, Allah'. We fixed our bayonets and jumped out of the trench and charged."

Sergeant James Dean, of Wood Street, Middleton, adds: "We had a terrible time. We made a general advance and took some of their trenches and our battalion was in the thick of it from start to finish. How I got through safely I do not know."

Tragically, the married 30-year-old was to die just two months later. His 23-year-old brother Arthur, who lived at the family home on Grimshaw Lane, was killed on the same day. The brothers now rest side-by-side in Redoubt Cemetery, Gallipoli.

The Dean brothers were among 22 more local men killed repulsing a ferocious Turkish attack in August on a position called, for obvious reasons, The Vineyard.

Now it was personal, and far from being disheartened Sergeant Ruckman, another Middletonian writing to a friend at Wood Street, sums up the feeling... "Some of the lads call us 'The Fighting Sixth'. We are getting quite used to our little hole in the ground, but it is awful out here and no matter where we are we are under shellfire.

"All the lads are going hunchbacked with ducking, but we are getting used to it and the boys are game. If Middleton will keep the homes going, we will keep the flags flying and keep the fighting name."