Helles
2 Seddülbahir Fort, V Beach and Yahya Çavuş Memorial, Seddülbahir
The old Ottoman fort of Seddülbahir, the ‘Barrier of the Sea’, lies at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, the end of Europe. On 3 November 1914, Seddülbahir was badly damaged, but not destroyed, by British battleships and 86 Turkish soldiers were killed. There is a fine walk down from the castle to Ertuğrul Koyu (cove) and along the beach towards, on the cliff top beyond, the ruins of Ertuğrul Fort. Looking along to the right from the fort is a memorial, the Yahya Çavuş Şehitliği ve Anıtı, showing three Turkish soliders, a flag unfurled above them, charging with rifles in hand. They face the beach and a British cemetery known by the name that the British gave this place for their landings on 25 April 1915 – V Beach.
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- The view from the beached British troop carrier River Clyde at Seddülbahir on the morning of 25 April 1915. The black mass huddled on the beach in the middle of the photograph is a group of British soldiers who had just landed from the troopship and were pinned down by Turkish machine gunners located in the fort. [AWM A03076]
To effect the landings, the British ran aground an old steamship, the River Clyde, on one of the rocky arms of the bay. Soldiers were to run out along walkways from doors cut into the side of the ship and then on to barges yoked together reaching to the shore. The plan broke down. The barges did not reach the shore and a number of acts of bravery were performed by British sailors to couple them together under fire. Five Victoria Crosses were awarded for this action, one posthumously to Able Seaman William Charles Willams, who ‘held on to a line in the water for over an hour under heavy fire until killed’.
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- Seddülbahir Castle at the tip of the Gallipoli peninusla with V Beach Cemetery in the foreground, Gallipoli, 2004.
Determined Turkish opposition held the British back on 25 April 1915. A machine-gun in Seddülbahir forced hundreds of soldiers to seek shelter under the bank leading up from the beach. On the heights beside Ertuğrul Fort, other Turkish positions, one of them led by Sergeant Yahya Chavus, also kept up effective fire. The memorial to Yahya and his men shows them charging with bayonets; in reality they did more damage with well-aimed rifle fire. So many British soldiers died at this landing that a British airman flying overhead observed that the water of the bay ran red with blood. Many who died that morning lie buried in V Beach Cemetery.