Royal Scots Fusiliers

[Guest KevinEndon]

Could a pal give me some information as to what was going on in Gallipoli on the 12th July 1915 that so many R.S.F. lost their lives. The Long Lost Trail has not reached that point yet.

Kevin

edited to July due to a typing error.

[Jeff Pickerd]

Kevin,

The men of the 8th Light Horse Regiment up on Russell's Top, at Anzac, make no reference to anything happening down at Helles on the 12th, but do mention heavy Turkish bombardment being heard from Helles on the 11th. Also notes on heavy fighting being heard at Helles on the 13th.

Alan Moorehead in "Gallipoli", page 183, chapter 11, does record that there were five pitched battles fought at Cape Helles, the first being June the 4th and the last, June 12/13.

There is nothing here to answer your question re the Royal Scots Fusiliers, but it does give you a reference point for further investigation.

Hopefully others from over there will be able to give you more detailed information, as Helles is not my field of knowledge.

Jeff

[aley]

Kevin, you don't mean 12th of July do you?" 4th and 5th Bns Royal Scots Fusiliers and the 4th and 5th Bns K.O.S.B (155th Brigade) were involved in an attack (towards Krithia?) on that date, losing heavily. Otherwise around the 11th of june the two battalions of RSF's were holding the line; having taken over trenches held by units of the 29th Division. They sustained casulaties during this period. This from The History of the Royal scots Fusiliers (1678 - 1918) by John Buchan. see pages 330 -339. Buchan give casualty figures for the attack of the 12th of July but not for the June period. Note that Buchan's narrative is quite general and unspecific and would not answer your question, further cross referencing required. Hope this helps though.

David.

[Guest KevinEndon]

Many thanks Jeff and Dave. I have edited the original post to read July as correctly pointed out by Dave. Many thanks for the help. One little towns memorial has 12 R.S.F. men killed on the 12th of July 1915, I will have to look up soldiers died to see exactly how many were killed that day.

I would appreciated any help in obtaining more details as to the battle.

Once again thanks for you help

Kevin

[aley]

Kevin, following is from pages 331 - 334. Note that in the casualties Buchan names the officers, i have left these out as i have run out of time. It sounds to me the same old story as far as that campaign went..

On the 21st May the brigade (155th) embarked at Liverpool in the Maurtania, and landed at Gallipoli on 6th June, being the first troops of the division to reach the scene of action. They were heavily shelled in their first rest camp, and the two Scots Fusilier battalions were at once put into the line to relieve units of the 29th Division, which had been sorely tried in the battle of 4th June. On 11th june the 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers lost Captain A. Logan from shell fire, and both battalions had many casualties before they were withdrawn. In the narrow and congested corner of land a rest camp was very little of a rest, and the 155th Brigade had an uneasy period of waiting, while on the 21st the French attacked and recaptured Haricot Redoubt, and on the 28th the 156th Brigade of their own division, moving on the British left, took the famous Gully Ravine, losing it commander, Brigadier-General W. Scott-Moncrieff, and 48 officers. This success brought our left wing considerably less than a mile from Krithia, and prepared the way for the final frontal attack upon that position - the Turkish front between Kereves Dere and Achi Baba nullah. The day fixed was 12th July, and the operation was to be in two parts - an attack at 7.35 a.m. by the French on the right and the 155th Brigade in the centre, and an attack at 4.50p.m. by the 157th Brigade on the left.

The attack of the 155th Brigade was to be delivered in four waves, with a frontage of some five hundred yards. The first wave consisted of two and a half companies of the 4th K.O.S.B., and two platoons of the 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers; the second wave of a company and a half of the 4th K.O.S.B., and two platoons of the Royal Scots Fusiliers; the third wave of two companies of the 5th K.O.S.B., and two platoons of the 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers; and the fourth wave of one company of the 5th K.O.S.B., and two platoons of the 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers. The 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers had also to supply a special company to keep touch with the French on the right, and touch was never lost during the battle. The 5th Royal Scots Fusiliers were in brigade reserve.

At 3.45p.m. on the 11th the bombardment began, and was resumed at 4.30 a.m. on the 12th, the Turks replying with vigour. At 7.30 to the minute the Borders and the Fusiliers left their trenches. "Unless one has seen it," wrote an officer, 'ther is no imagination that can picture a belt of land some four hundred yards wide converted into a seething hell of destruction. Rifle and machine-gun bullets rip up the earth, ping past the ear, or whing off the loose stones; shrapnel bursts overhead and the leaden bullets strike the ground with a vicious thud; the earth is rent into yawning chasms, while planks, snadbags, clods, and great rugged chunks of steel hurtle through the air. The noise is an indescribable, nerve-racking, continuous, deafening roar, while drifting clouds of smoke only allow an intermittent view of the damnable inferno." The 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers began to lose men from the start. They could not move fast, being heavily laden, and the slope of the land was such that they were almost at once out of view of the men behind. Moreover, they had to make a most difficult wheel over ground which was a labyrinth of broken trenches. Two Turkish fire-trenches lay before them, and as wave followed wave these were taken; but of the thirteen Fusilier officers who took part in the attack all but one, Captain H.R. Young, became casulaties. The remnant was too weak to attempt the main enemy fire-trench beyond, so Captain Young ( who was in command of the company that was in liaison with the French ) got the survivors together and consolidated what had been won. "The 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers machine-gun officer was among the fallen, but Sergeant T. Murphy brought his guns over the open under heavy fire, and took up a position whence he materially assisted in covering the consolidation and in repelling counter attacks." ( Lt-Col. Thompson's The 52nd Division (1923), page 91. )

Meantime the 4th K.O.S.B. were gallantly faring forward, until they came within the zone of our own artillery fire, and it was necessary to call a halt. They had actually penetrated the enemy front, but few of that band of heroes returned. Then the 5th K.O.S.B. advanced, and to support them General Erskine sent in the only reserves he possessed - two companies of the 5th Royal Scots Fusiliers. With their assistance the captured trenches were made good and communication trenches dug. In the afternoon the 157th Brigade on the left progressed well, though with heavy losses, and at the same time the 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers on the right attacked and captured a further trench. The day had been on the whole succesful ,for the 157th Brigade had made a gap some siv hundred and fifty yards wide in the main Turkish trench system, and the 155th Brigade and the French had driven back the enemy to his last fire-line west of the Kereves Dere. Between the latter and the summit of Achi Baba there were only some scattered earthworks, and had we been able to send in fresh troops before nightfall the defencemight have crumbled. As it was, we could no more than repel counter-attacks and hold what wehad gained, and an attempt by the Royal Naval Division next day to improve these gains did not succeed. The battle won ground, but it did not alter the stalemate, and it compelled Sir Ian Hamilton to revise his strategy. The day had gone when a frontal attack on the Turkish fortress could succeed.

The losses of the 52nd Division had been such that for the Scottish Lowlands it was a second Flodden. In large areas between Tweed and Forth scarcely a household but mourned a son. On the 3rd July the division numbered 10,900 of all ranks; by the 13th it had lost over 4,800 in killed and wounded. The 4th Royal Scots Fusiliers had 6 officers killed and 118 other ranks; and 6 officers and 148 other ranks wounded. The 5th Royal Scots Fusiliers suffered scarcely less heavily in the task of support. 7 officers and 69 other ranks killed; while 1 officer and 139 other ranks were wounded.

The battle of 12th July was the chief of the Gallipoli actions between the landing and the battle which began on 8th August, and it was the one great fight of the 52nd Division in that campaign.

[aley]

Kevin, further; i have checked the following and all go into greater detail than Buchan's work. I am afraid the amount of text is to much for my typing and time but i would recommend sourcing these when you get the chance (a good map in Gillon's work facing page 244 ):

See chapter 2 and 3, pages 17 to 39 in the following:

Author:Brown, W. Sorley (William Sorley), b1889 ,Title:War Record of the 4th Bn. King's Own Scottish Borderers and Lothians and Border Horse. With history of the T. F. Associations of the Counties of Roxburgh, Berwick, and Selkirk. Edited by W. Sorley Brown. [With illustrations.]Publisher/Date:1920

See chapter 2, pages 21 to 52 in the following:

Author:Elliot, G. F. Scott (George Francis Scott)Title:War history of the 5th Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers / by G.F. Scott Elliot.Publisher/Date:Dumfries [scotland] : Robert Dinwiddie, 1928.Description:xii, 328 p., [34] leaves of plates (1 folded) : ill., maps, ports. ; 27 cm.

See Book 3, chapter 1, pages 234 to 245 in following:

Author:Gillon, Stair Agnew, 1877-1954. ,Title:The K.O.S.B. in the Great War / by Stair Gillon.Publisher/Date:London : Nelson & Sons, [1930]Description:xiv, 488 p., [11] leaves of plates : ill., maps ; 23 cm.

[Guest KevinEndon]

A thousand thanks to you. My Christmas list has now just got bigger, hope the wife can find these books somewhere.

Kevin

[Malcolm]

Aye Kevin, if ye didna know before ye do now!! Good post aley.

Aye

Malcolm

[Malcolm]

Kevin,

Using Geoff's new wonderful search engine gives 167 dead for RSF on that date.

Search results for: + 12/07/1915 + ROYAL SCOTS FUSILIERS. records found: 167

http://www.hut-six.co.uk/cgi-bin/search2.php

Aye

Malcolm