Chapter 28 – Ali

Harvey Broadbent, in The Boys Who Came Home , includes statements by men who served with the 27th Battalion (sic) in the Turkish 5th Army. Presumably these men served with a battalion of the 27th Regiment, as battalion numbers not unique in the Turkish 5th Army, with each regiment typically having a 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalion. One of these interviewees was gunner, Recep Trudal who reported being sent to the Straits to defend against the British naval assault of 18 March 1915 (p. 32).

Les Carlyon in Gallipoli lists the 16 British and French warships involved in the assault on the Dardanelles on 18 March, 1915 on p. 68. His account of the attack (p.65-73) includes the sinking of the French ship Bouvet , as well as the British ships Irresistable and Ocean after each hit a mine. Three other ships were crippled but escaped.

Edward Erickson includes the following details in his account of the Ottoman defence of the Straits of Channakale in Gallipoli – The Ottoman Campaign (p.19-22):

“At 11.25am, 18 March, a squadron of the four most powerful British ships went into action by engaging the narrows forts, while older pre-dreadnoughts hammered the intermediate defences… At 11.55am the guns of Dardanos and the Baykuş Mesudiye Batteries (150mm guns) began to fire and at noon the 240mm battery of the Rumeli Mecidiye Fort joined in. The allied ships pounded the…batteries. By noon many of the intermediate Ottoman forts appeared to have been silenced. Then at 1:20pm the heavy guns of the Anadolu Hamidiye Fort (355mm and 240mm guns) opened fire. Ten minutes later an enemy aircraft appeared over the strait and the European Central Group (Rumeli Mecidiye, Hamidiye and Namazgah Forts – all with 240mm guns) began to draw very heavy fires…Enemy fires began to fall effectively on Anadolu Hamidiye and Rumeli Mecidiye  causing casualties…French battleships closed to within 8,000m of the narrows towards 2pm at which time the Rumeli Mecidiye Fort opened fire. The fort had been hit hard by several direct heavy shells that killed ten men and wounded twenty-four. The magazines were ablaze and out of terror and confusion one of the most famous stories in Turkey about the naval attack of 18 March emerged. It involved a heroic corporal named Seyit…The Fort’s main battery was equipped with four 240mm heavy guns, which fired shells weighing between 140kg to 250kg (depending on the type). Corporal Seyit commanded the third gun, which was hit by shell fire at the height of the battle damaging the auto-loading gear and rendering it technically inoperable. To the amazement of the huddled gunners, the indomitable Seyit lifted one of the rounds onto his back and carried it to the gun. Somehow he loaded the round, aimed the piece and fired. Popular histories in Turkey assert that Seyit’s shell hit HMS Ocean , although this has never been confirmed…there is a statue of Seyit on the shores of the Dardanelles commemorating this event today.

Suddenly just after 2pm…the French pre-dreadnaught Bouvet blew up and sank within minutes…At 4.11pm, the modern battle cruiser Inflexible struck a mine and nearly sank. Minutes later the pre-dreadnought Irresistible was also mined. At 5pm, a discouraged de Robeck called of the operation and a few final rounds were fired at Irresistible at 5:30pm from the Rumeli Mecidiye Fort…At 6.05pm, the pre-dreadnought Ocean, after attempting to tow the damaged Irresistable out of harm’s way, also struck a mine and began to sink. Both battleships were abandoned and sank later that night…Most of the Turkish casualties were concentrated in the Rumeli Mecidiye Fort (12 dead and 30 wounded).”

A famous photo of Corporal Seyit hauling the shell on his back can be viewed as Australian War Memorial photo AWM A05301.

Edward Erickson provides an extensive analysis of the Ottoman ammunition status following the 18 March attack in Gallipoli – The Ottoman Campaign (p.22-29). He concludes that “The Ottomans clearly had enough shells to continue the fight.” (p.27), with a footnote stating that they had enough shells for five more days of battle, assuming they continued to expend their heavy shells at the same rate as 18 March.

Furthermore, Edward Erickson concludes (p.29) that “Winston Churchill was wrong when he made the claim that the navy had the potential to force easily the Dardanelles with the forces then available to Admiral de Robeck in late March 1915. In suggesting so, he did a great disservice to de Roebeck and to the Royal Navy. Perhaps he did an even greater disservice to the historians who followed his lead in their assessments of Ottoman defences.”

The author’s grandfather-in-law Ali Hüsnü Turkoğlü (rank of Üzbaş = Captain), was involved in Turkish naval defence and later the defence of the Anzac sector.