Item 01: Thomas Goodwin war diary, 25 April 1915-22 July 1916 - Page 5
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[Page 5]
flour mills there, it is all done by wind mills and stones, I was ashore there for about half an hour with some of our horses. Now it is a base hospital site. As soon as we dropped anchor we were besieged with bum boats, loaded with oranges lemons nuts, figs chocolate eggs bread, Turkish delight, (a favourite sweet) During our stay at Lemnos the remainder of the troop ships arrived, also a number of warships both British and French. We carried 8 pontoons on our boat for disembarking horses, They were well made and fitted, weighed 10 tons each and carried 24 horses. When a horse was slung and lowered over into the pontoon, he was put up one end and a rail put up and being tied up, it was impossible to move. After a few days at Lemnos we recieved orders to be instructed, in disembarking horses and vehicles, one section only 24 horses, 2 guns and 2 wagons. We got through the job without a hitch. We were towed ashore by a tug to be correct, as near the shore as possible. The water was too shallow to allow the tug to go close inland, In fact one tug did get stuck on a mud bank, also a troop ship When the order come through "cast off" we had to use poles to punt ashore