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Updated: June 29, 2025
The morning sun was up as we lay in Suvla Bay. It lit the famous battlefield, so that we saw in a shining picture the hills, up which the invading Britons had rushed to win the steps of Sari Bair. From over Asia it had risen and, doubtless, beyond the unwon ridges that blocked our view, the Straits of the Narrows were glistening like a silver ribbon in its light.
The Regimental officer at Cape Helles naturally knew very little of the strategy underlying these operations, and nothing of events at Suvla or Anzac, though Suvla was but thirteen miles and Anzac but five from Fusilier Bluff. His could only be the impressions of an eyewitness in an orbit limited to his Brigade.
How they were depended upon in a crucial operation, how they wavered, and the consequences to the allied operations will be told in the narrative. Suvla Bay lies between five and six miles from Anzac Cove. It is a wide, shallow indentation forming an almost perfect half circle.
A little French destroyer, pearl-grey in the evening light, steamed past us, and the French sailors waved their arms, and danced a welcome to this troopship of their allies. The Rangoon yelled at them: "What price Suvla?" Some English sailors, towed past in coal barges, asked us whether we were downhearted, and we called back: "NO! What price SUVLA! Are we going to win?
We slept through troubled dreams, and woke to a gathering calm on the sea. As our eager eyes swept the view by daylight, we found that we were in a semicircular and unsheltered bay, whose choppy water harboured two warships that were desultorily firing. Near us a derelict trawler lay half submerged. The truth broke upon us: we were floating at anchor in Suvla Bay.
The boat was full of drafts for the 29th Division Essex and Hampshire men, Inniskillings, Munsters, Royal and Lancashire Fusiliers, Worcesters and rumours of the intended Suvla expedition were in the air.
The first official announcement of failure was made December 20, 1916, when it was announced that the British forces at Anzac and Suvla Bay had been withdrawn, and that only the minor positions near Sedd-el-Bahr were occupied.
Queer scents, pepperminty and sage-like smells, came in whiffs. It was cold. I must have gone several miles along the Kapanja Sirt when I came to a halt and once more tried to get my bearings. I peered at the gloomy sky, but there was no star. I listened for the lap-lap of water on the beach of Suvla Bay, but I must have been too far up the ridges to hear anything. There was dead silence.
The simple typed message that was pinned on the notice-board, and could scarcely be read for the crowds surrounding it, ran: "We have landed in strong force at Suvla Bay and penetrated seven miles inland. Ends." A new landing, hurrah! April 25th over again! The miracle of Helles repeated at Suvla! Out with the maps to study the strategy of the move!
"The attack from Anzac after a series of desperately contested actions, was carried to the summit of Sari Bair and Chunuk Bair Ridge, which are the dominating positions on this area, but, owing to the fact that the attack from Suvla Bay did not make the progress which was counted upon, the troops from Anzac were not able to maintain their position in the actual crest, and after repeating counterattacks, were compelled to withdraw to positions close below it."
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