Burial of Charles Doughty -Wylie at Gallipoli.

[john white]

Dear Members

                     A simple question. Why was Doughty- Wylie's body not re-interred in a cemetery when the general clearance took place after the war.

                                                            Regards

                                                                   John White

                       

[john white]

Dear Members

          With reference to the above a suggestion has been made to me that Lilian Doughty- Wylie had made a request for her husband to be permanently buried in a single grave. She was a lady of considerable influence and maybe there is some truth in the suggestion.

                                         Regards

                                               John White

[horatio2]

In his book "Gallipoli" Michael Hickey says that "D-W, who had spent a number of years in Turkey as a soldier-diplomat and loved the Turkish people, could not bring himself to bear arms against them and led the attack armed only with a cane ... He was buried where he fell; after the war, the Turks insisted that their honoured friend should remain alone at the scene of his final victory."

[emrezmen]

It's because of his wife, Lilian.

 

She went to Istanbul after the Armistice and made a request for the gravesite to be given to her. Eventually, the site was given to her by Sultan Mehmed VI's special verbal order. This is how and why Lt.Col. D-W's grave remained there. But after Mehmed's flight in 1922, that verbal order lost its validity. Lilian, again, tried to buy the gravesite as a personal property in July 1924. Her appeal/money offer was rejected by officials of the new republic for not to set a precedent which is indeed a valid ground imo.

 

There are lots of documents, correspondences about all this in Turkish State Archives. There is also a Turkish article based upon those documents: See

 

 

Edited 17 November , 2018 by emrezmen

[john white]

Dear  Emrezmen

                Thank you very much for your information. Doughty- Wylie's position must have been difficult as he had formed an affection for the Turkish people but was obliged to lead his men in battle against Turkish soldiers.

                               Thanks again.

                                         Regards

                                               John Whie                                       

[Stereoview Paul]

An early photo of the original grave

[Eceabat]

Hi Paul, I think you will find that the grave you have illustrated belongs to Captain Garth Walford VC of the Royal Artillery and staff, who was also killed in the taking of Seddulbahr village on 26 April. 

 

Walford's original grave was located near to where the main entrance to the castle is, on the area of the village overlooking the Dardanelles. The wall of the castle can be seen on the upper left of the photo. 

 

Walford's remains were subsequently relocated to the V Beach Cemetery. 

 

Doughty-Wylie's grave lies a few hundred metres to the north west of where this photo was taken.

 

Cheers

Bill

 

 

 

 

[michaeldr]

14 minutes ago, Eceabat said:

Hi Paul, I think you will find that the grave you have illustrated belongs to Captain Garth Walford VC of the Royal Artillery and staff, who was also killed in the taking of Seddulbahr village on 26 April. 

 

Walford's original grave was located near to where the main entrance to the castle is, on the area of the village overlooking the Dardanelles. The wall of the castle can be seen on the upper left of the photo. 

 

Agreed. The grave of Walford VC is also seen here https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Knatchbull_M_(capt_the_Hon)_Collection_Q44348.jpg

 

[Stereoview Paul]

Hmm, this newspaper cutting, showing the same grave as the stereoview, suggests that initially this was the grave of both of them!

[Eceabat]

The clipping may have said it, but D-W's grave was well away from that of Walford. He was buried close to where he fell, near the gate of the Old Fort or Eskitabya (not to be confused with the castle, almost directly above V Beach and 400 or so metres inland. The area was also marked as Hill 141 on some maps, and Doughty-Wylie Hill. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stereoview Paul]

Thank you all - I will amend my notes. I had relied on this newspaper report for identification. The name of Walford is readable in the image along with Royal Artillery but the lower two lines are unreadable; so I had incorrectly assumed they referred to Doughty-Wylie.

 

Perhaps the other grave was originally less photogenic and the newspaper preferred the look of this one for publication purposes

[trajan]

Having just been re-reading Hart's Gallipoli I was fascinated by the story he recounts of how the re-internment of D-W's remains (454-455) saw them arranged in geometrical symmetry after they had to recut the grave to recover these!  Those pages also detail the form of the memorial / grave specified by Mrs. D-W,

Trajan 

[trajan]

Hmmm... According to Surgeon Kelly, RNAS, in the recovery / burial party here, D-W 'was buried with Major Grimshaw where they fell', which could be interpreted as a single or as two separate graves, but he also notes how the O/C of the party, Col.Williams, shook 'the dead mens hands before they were placed in the grave', which implies a single grave for both, at least originally.  

[michaeldr]

Very interesting info there Trajan and thanks for adding that (particularly the bit about the handshake from Col. Williams)

Grimshaw is now in V Beach Cemetery. The grave inside the Fort (with the stone balls before the cross) is that of Walford

I was at V Beach in March 2015 (just a month short of the Centenary) together with some Dublin lads who all thought that Grimshaw was short-changed in that he did not get the VC like Walford & D-W.

[michaeldr]

In their book on the Helles landing, the Rodges also quote Col Williams. He came upon D-W shortly after he was killed. He took his money, watch and a few things then had him buried "at once, having seen such disgusting sights of unburied dead..."

They also quote Nightingale whose men buried D-W. But no mention by either of a double burial.

If there was such a double internment (?) then I wonder if it was Grimshaw next to Walford???

Edited 16 August , 2021 by michaeldr

[michaeldr]

From the Rodges' book again. They quote the contractor, a Mr A. Cooke, who worked for the IWGC in 1923 - "...his (D-W) body became visible  - enveloped in a ragged uniform with belt, huddled in a crouching position."

No mention of another body

[michaeldr]

18 hours ago, trajan said:

the O/C of the party, Col.Williams, shook 'the dead mens hands before they were placed in the grave',

 

4 hours ago, michaeldr said:

Col Williams. He came upon D-W shortly after he was killed. He took his money, watch and a few things

I wonder if Williams actually shook hands with the dead

Or, did the observer see him take the corpse's hand while he was removing its watch?

Lots of things here are open to interpretation, or indeed mis-interpretation: will we ever know?

[michaeldr]

Hi Julian,

I hope that all is well with you and yours during these difficult times in Turkey.

 

re your previous post: 

On 14/08/2021 at 09:51, trajan said:

I was fascinated by the story he recounts of how the re-internment of D-W's remains (454-455) saw them arranged in geometrical symmetry after they had to recut the grave to recover these! 

Mr. A. E. Cooke who was an engineer with the IWGC on Gallipoli in 1923/4, wrote an account of his work which is held by the IWM. In that he relates how at Doughty-Wylie's grave site, having given his men instructions and set them to work, he then left to inspect other sites. On his return, he found that as they dug the trench for the foundations, the soft soil of the trench wall had at first collapsed, so they removed the remains in order to complete their work. When that was done, they had then returned the remains to the grave, placing 'the skull at the top of the grave and made a geometric pattern of his bones – even his finger bones!' [as quoted in Heart of a Dragon by W. Alister Williams]

On 15/08/2021 at 18:09, trajan said:

According to Surgeon Kelly, RNAS, in the recovery / burial party here, D-W 'was buried with Major Grimshaw where they fell', which could be interpreted as a single or as two separate graves,

This IWM photograph was taken by Brooks in January 1916, just before the evacuation, and it appears to show a second grave next to, or at the foot of, Doughty-Wylie's. In view of Surgeon Kelly's remarks, I wonder if this was the original internment of Major Grimshaw?

Edited 13 February , 2023 by michaeldr
spelling