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Updated: June 1, 2025
"Well, we shall be like the rearguard that covered the retreat at Mons heroes, but mostly dead ones." "Good Lord!" thought I, as the C.O. turned away. "We shall be lonely on Helles to-night if we hear that the Suvla Army has left for England." I went, as he suggested, to glance at the preparations on the sea.
As Helles, Anzac and Tenedos have each been ruled out, we are going to doss down on this sandbank opposite us. One thing, it will be central to both my theatres of work. 29th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." The Commodore, Roger Keyes, arrived mid-day and invited me to come over to Helles with him on a destroyer, H.M.S. Scorpion.
I tell him that the real place "looks a much tougher nut to crack than it did over the map," I say that his "impression that the ground between Cape Helles and Krithia was clear of the enemy," was mistaken. "Not a bit of it." I say, "The Admiral tells me that there is a large number of men tucked away in the folds of the ground there, not to speak of several field Batteries."
Go and have a look from the Bluff out to sea, and observe how well the show is being advertised. There may be reason for this ostentation, but it's dam-awkward for my lads, who'll have to run up against a well-prepared enemy." "But s'posing it means they're going to evacuate Suvla, and leave us to our fate, what'll be our position on Helles then, sir?"
Last night a dense fog during which a Turkish Torpedo boat sneaked down the Straits and torpedoed the Goliath. David and his sling on the grand scale. No details yet to hand. The enemy deserve decorations confound them! Got hold of a Fleet-sweeper and went off to Cape Helles. Again visited Headquarters 29th Division, and afterwards walked through the trenches of the 87th Brigade.
No doubt the Q.E. turned up in the very nick of time, at a moment when we were being forced to retire too rapidly. A certain number of stragglers were slipping quietly back towards Cape Helles along the narrow sandy strip at the foot of the high cliffs, so, as it was flat calm, I sent Aspinall off in a small boat with orders to rally them.
On a small scale map, in an office, you may make mole-hills of mountains; on the ground there's no escaping from its features. As soon as the French Commander took his leave, we steamed back for Gaba Tepe, passing Cape Helles at 12.20 p.m. Weather now much brighter and warmer. Passing "Y" Beach the re-embarkation of troops was still going on.
It was the naval airmen who protected and made possible the safe withdrawal of the troops from Suvla and Helles; it was they who discovered and destroyed the mines along our coasts; who fought the enemy seaplanes man to man, and gun to gun; who gave the pirate nests of Zeebrugge and Ostend no rest by day or night, who watched over the ceaseless coming and going of the British, Dominion, and American troops across the Channel; who were the eyes of our coasts as the ships, laden with the men, food, and munitions, which were the life-blood of the Allied Cause, drew homeward to our ports, with the submarines on their track, and the protecting destroyers at their side.
What silly things one thinks in an evening of suspense and twilight like this! One minute I feel I want to be alive this time to-morrow, in order that my book, which has become everything to me, may have a happy ending. Pennybet fell at Neuve Chapelle, Doe at Cape Helles, and one ought to be left alive to save the face of the tale.
As to our tactical scheme for producing these strategical results, it is simple in outline though infernally complicated in its amphibious and supply aspects. The French and British at Helles will attack so as to draw the attention of the Turks southwards. To add to this effect, we are thinking of asking the Anzacs to exert a preliminary pressure on the Gaba Tepe alarum to the southwards.
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