Gallipoli Prisoners Of War Who Later Died

[Peter Bennett]

I have been told that captured servicemen from Gallipoli were sent to Instanbul, Ankara etc. Apart from Haidar Pasha cemetery, are there any buried elsewhere in Turkey.

Thank you

Peter

[bob lembke]

Peter;

There have been several posts on this lately; I believe a Turkish Pal has recently posted stuff on this topic on "Other".

Several mentions were about Allied POWs working on building the railroad that the Turks were trying to get over the Taurus mountains about where Turkey abuts Syria. I also have read, in a German unit history, German soldiers on the RR seeing Caucasian POWs working on the RR. I think that most of the sightings were in late 1916, which may suggest that the conditions were certainly bad (as it would have been for Turks or Arabs or others on the job), but not absolutely murderous. (A man I knew was a German POW, he and 240 other German POWs were put on one RR job by the Russians, he and two others survived the one job. He was very small so perhaps he was detailed to keep trank of production, not do the physical work.) There was mention of some graves being found. Why don't you just scroll back say three months on this "Other theatres" sub-forum?

I may have sounded defensive for the Turks above; their conditions were just horrible, generally. My wife read a Turkish book which mentioned a middle-class ancestor who was drafted at the time of Gallipoli, he was given a horribly ill-fitting pair of boots and was marched toward Gallipoli till he died on the march from mangled feet. Just marched to death. My father fought with the Turks at Gallipoli, and he thought them the finest troops he encountered in the war, except the men of the best German storm units, like Storm=Battalion Rohr and the Prussian Guard flame regiment, both of which he fought in. But their conditions were terrible for anyone, soldier or POW. Luckily most of them were as hard as nails.

Good hunting! There were a number of posts and threads in this area recently.

Bob Lembke

[Bryn]

Some ended up some distance from where they died: for example,

Private Brendan Calcutt, captured at Anzac, died of septicaemia at Belemedik on 18 December, 1916, aged 20. Originally buried in Hadzi-Ker (Hadu Kerr) Cemetery, his body was exhumed and reinterred in Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery after the war. This seems to have been not uncommon, so a number of Gallipoli POWs ended up being buried in that cemetery.

Bryn

[Will O'Brien]

Peter

One of the casualties I have researched was taken to Mosul as a POW & this is where he died. He's listed on the Basra Memorial. Strangely I found the information about Mosul on his parents Gravestone which carries a memorial inscription for him.

[MartinWills]

The fate of many prisoners of war from Gallipoli is a little vague to say the least, though you will gain some grasp of the position if you search out any of the PoW accounts published after the war (there was a thread on this somewhere in the past). In essence people were shunted around a vast range of camps of varying sizes and types. The purely Turkish camps were generally the poorer whereas those run by Germans, generally as a means of providing labour for railway building and the like, were better and food there was far more generous.

Many men died in these camps working on projects such as the railway through the Taurus mountains and many were buried in small cemeteries associated with these camps. Concentration (where the grave was identified) invariably took them to the east of Turkey and Baghdad North Gate, with others appearing on various memorials (almost always the Gallipoli memorials).

[Northern Soul]

Peter

One of the casualties I have researched was taken to Mosul as a POW & this is where he died. He's listed on the Basra Memorial. Strangely I found the information about Mosul on his parents Gravestone which carries a memorial inscription for him.

Will,

Occasionally in the original CWGC registers for the Basra Memorial it will give supplementary details of where a man died if he was a prisoner. An example is:

TURNER, Pte. Frank, 265330 (1757). 1st/6th Bn. Devonshire Regiment attd. 2nd Bn. Dorsetshire Regt. Died 30th Sept., 1916, while a Prisoner of War, and is buried at Mosul.

These sort of entries don't seem to have been carried over to the on-line version but I can't say for sure just how many entries it would apply to as I have never done a proper survey.

Best wishes.

Andy.

[Peter Bennett]

Thanks to all who replied.

The consensus would seem to be, if I am reading it correctly, that all who died in Turkey are physically buried or commemorated in Iraq and none are identified or commemorated in Turkey, how ironic.

Regards

Peter

[Eceabat]

Hi Peter,

those Commonwealth POWs who died in Istanbul are buried in Haidar Pasha Cemetery on the Asian side of the city. Recommend a visit to anyone, it is one of the most peaceful spots in Istanbul. If I recall rightly, at least some of the French OWs who died were buried at Morto Bay at Cape Helles but I could be wrong on this one.

Most of those who died elsewhere are either buried or commemorated in Baghdad. I know of a few chaps they couldn't locate after the war, one I am sure of was a crewman off the Australian submarine AE2, called Williams. Another was an Australian called Green (I think) who died in the central Turkish town of Yozgat, less than a month or so before the war's end. While buried in the town's Christian cemetery, his body was not found post war.

A Light Horseman (haven't got his name or regiment on the tip of my tongue at the moment, died on a hospital ship after being evacuated after the end of the war and was buried at sea. I think he is commemorated in Baghdad.

There is one POW buried on the Gallipoli Peninsula, Vivian Cyril Brooke, 12th Battalion AIF, who lies in Ariburnu Cemetery. He was captured on 25 April after being wounded and taken to Maidos, now Eceabat. He was again wounded when the British navy bombarded the town a few days later, flattening the hospital in the town and killing many of the wounded there. Transferred with another wounded Australian POW to the town of Biga across the Dardanelles, he died on 4 May and was buried in the local Christian cemetery. His body was disinterred after the war and he was buried just above the point where the first Australians came ashore.

A point should be made that Brooke's story does disprove Bean's claims that no Australian wounded were captured on the day of the landing.

Cheers

Bill

[Terry Denham]

The consensus would seem to be, if I am reading it correctly, that all who died in Turkey are physically buried or comemmorated in Iraq and none are identified or commemorated in Turkey, how ironic.

Peter

Strictly speaking, both what we now call Turkey and Iraq were part of the Ottoman Empire at the time and so were one country!

[Peter Bennett]

Good Point Terry, but why would the bodies be taken on such a long journey to Baghdad. If Turkey (sic) had agreed to War Graves on Gallipoli, what was the reason for only Istanbul being used.

[Eceabat]

Hi Terry and Peter,

while the POW's died in what was the Ottoman Empire, by the time the bodies of these men were collected and the cemeteries completed, the empire was no more. Some of the reasoning behind centralising the POW graves was administrative, as there were many small cemeteries and individual graves scattered across what was the Ottoman Empire and it would have been hard if not impossible to maintain all the graves. Also take into account that Britain had a presence in Iraq following the war and, though it had occupying forces in Turkey until 1922 or so, there was a war raging in the region, as the Turks sought to expel the Greeks and building small cemeteries in isolated and at times contested areas could have been difficult.

Apart from the cemeteries on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and the whole of the ANZAC sector, none of the burial places were covered in the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. This granted the land of the cemeteries on the Peninsula in perpetuity to the Commonwealth powers (as it became). The Haidar Pasha cemetery is covered by two earlier grants from the Sultan of the time of the Crimean War and so has similar protection.

I just remembered that there are two unidentified Commonwealth POW burials in the Chanak Consular Cemetery, in the town of Canakkale across the Dardanelles. These two graves were transferred from the Rodosto Catholic Cemetery after the war. The CWGC website lists these two men as having died in September 1915. When transferring POWs from Gallipoli to Istanbul, some were taken by road, others by ship. Rodosto is now the town of Tekirdag on the inland Sea of Marmara. These men were probably captured in the fighting in August or September on the Peninsula, dying en-route to Istanbul.

Cheers

Bill

[Peter Bennett]

Thanks Bill, it seems to be making sense now. Are there any records of exactly how many died as POWs.

[Terry Denham]

That's what you need - local knowledge! Thanks, Bill.

I guessed it essentially would have been an 'ease of maintenance' decision.

[Dogan Sahin]

Hi Peter,

Canakkale wars; both sides didn't take many prisoners! because simply they couldnt look after them.

I remember reading somewhere that in Egypt/Palestien Scottish regiments were particularly oredered "try not to take any prisoners". And so it goes...

Many young heros died. Some as prisoners of war. You will read many sad stories and find leads to stories if you search through this site.

I have found out at least 4 australian names who died in captivity in Afionkarahissar camp. There was at least 1 French and some Russians.. There were apparently 22 POW "places" (for there were no camps as such in turkey and POWs were allowed to mingle with the locals). In afionkarahisar there were about 200 Russians, close to 60 submariners of French, English and Ozzies and Kiwis, at leastt 300 KUT prisoners at one time or another...Afion was the main camp and many POW came and went through here. There are some really interesting stories about cultural differences, culinary differences, expectations etc. (I assume you dont read Turkish but you will finds details on www.kocatepegazetesi.com on right hand side column under my name )

EG. one POW writes " we were given some sort of beans that is disgusting"; they were given "green lentil soup" (part of karavana, soldiers stable that is still given and is called kara simsek and it really can be disgusting depending on the cook soldier!), same food that was given to Turkish conscripts!

Another writes " we were given milk that is gone bad! and we had typhus..."; cokelek, curd milk and yogurt! he just didn't know and it seems as if he survived to write his story on -bad milk-

yet another writes " we were given stale bread" that was -peksimet-, crispy bread (my grandfather used to say that peksimet was the stable diet and he fought for 21 years all over the empire)

yes there are atleas Indian soldier graves in belemedik adana, which were not exhumed..If you ask me, all those who fell on this land shouldve been left to rest in peace...