Item 02: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett articles on the Gallipoli campaign, 1915 - Page 224

[Page 224]

[Text incorporates handwritten corrections by E.A.B.]
station assigned, to her at the different landings. Their alloted task was to carry close inshore the second lot of troops who were to support those which were put ashore in the the boats and staem pinnaces of the battleships. They were filled with troops at Mudros and followed and the landing and covering battleships To Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles.

It was a great sight at dawn to see the Destroyers crammed witn khaki clad figures creeping in closer and closer coming under a heavy rifle machine gun and shrapnel fire and only stopping to discharge their living cargoes into boats when the shallowness of the water prohibited a further advance.Throughout those early days the Destroyers were kept incessantly busy landing troops covering exposed wings and keeping guard up the Straits to stop any of the enemy's torpedo craft from mking a sudden raid on our flanking ships and immense fleet of transports which, at this time, lay of Seddul Bahr.

A destroyer is a freind to everyone in distress. She can move so quickly and twist and turn so rapidly that she is ever on the spot to lend a helping hand. One day two of our transports lying locked togther off Y Beach were suddenly opened on by a Turkish Field Battery and hit about thirty times. The steam winch of one of them having been injured she could not raise her anchor. Immediately a destroyer went to her assistance and lowered a boat to pick up a panic stricken member of the crew who had lept overboard. This boat moved about amidst a tornao of shells which plughed up the water all around her and it was a miracle how she escaped. All this time in addition to the work actually around the Straits other divisions