State Library of NSW
[Page 186]
words knowing what a slippery customer he had to deal with but for some time could only obtain vague andbunsatisfactory evidence. However the occasion arose on the visit of some Russian Officers who were taken all round the various Gallipoli positions. Two Naval officers were attached to them and in their presence Hamilton so far forgot himself as to assert to his visitors that it was only the untimely intervention of the ship's guns that brought about the disaster. His words were promptly reported to the Admiral who immediately wrote a letter asking for a specific statement on the subject of these allegations or else a denial in toto. The correspondence was shown me by Roger Keyes with de Robeck's permission. The Admiral's letter was firm and courty and Hamilton's reply a miserable shuffling denial that he had ever used the words complained of and that it was not the truth that the occupation of Chunuk Bair had been brought to naught through the fault of the ships.
Keyes then asked me if I had ever heard the Staff use words to this effect. I at once replied that they had never ceased to rub it in to me that the Navy had shelled the Gourkas off and that this cause alone prevented the retention of Chunuk Bair. I was subsecquently able to produce extracts from Nevinson's diary and my own showing that Hamilton had himself in an interview made use of these words but that also it was I expressly stated in the offical account of these operations issued to us by the General Staff. All this information I supplied to Keyes in a letter.
Saturday October 2nd.This day I bade farewell to Imbros forever. I went on board the Cornwallis to say Good Bye to Captain
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