The S.S. River Clyde, which, loaded with troops, was run ashore on the beach, Sedd-el-Bahr. She is known familiarly as "The Wooden Horse," in allusion to the famous and somewhat similar expedient of the Greeks at Troy.
The day passed thus, but at nightfall the Turks' fire paused, and the men came ashore from the River Clyde, almost unharmed. They joined the survivors on the beach and at once attacked the old fort and the village above it. These works were strongly held by the enemy. All had been ruined by the fire from the fleet, but in the rubble and ruin of old masonry there were thousands of hidden riflemen backed by machine guns. Again and again they beat off our attacks, for there was a bright moon and they knew the ground, and our men had to attack uphill over wire and broken earth and heaped stones in all the wreck and confusion and strangeness of war at night in a new place. Some of the Dublins and Munsters went astray in the ruins, and were wounded far from their fellows and so lost. The Turks became more daring after dark; while the light lasted they were checked by the River Clyde's machine guns, but at midnight they gathered unobserved and charged. They came right down onto the beach, and in the darkness and moonlight much terrible and confused fighting followed. Many were bayoneted, many shot, there was wild firing and crying, and then the Turk attack melted away, and their machine guns began again. When day dawned, the survivors of the landing party were crouched under the shelter of the sandbank; they had had no rest; most of them had been fighting all night, all had landed across the corpses of their friends. No retreat was possible, nor was it dreamed of, but to stay there was hopeless. Lieutenant Colonel Doughty-Wylie gathered them together for an attack: the fleet opened a terrific fire upon the ruins of the fort and village, and the landing party went forward again, fighting from bush to bush and from stone to stone, till the ruins were in their hands. Shells still fell among them, single Turks, lurking under cover, sniped them and shot them, but the landing had been made good, and V beach was secured to us.
This was the worst and the bloodiest of all the landings.
The Landing at W Beach, under Cape Tekke.
The men told off for this landing were the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, supported (later) by the Worcester Regiment.
The men were landed at six in the morning from ships' boats run ashore by picket-boats. On landing, they rushed the wire entanglements, broke through them, with heavy loss, and won to the dead ground under the cliffs. The ships drew nearer to the beach and opened heavy fire upon the Turks, and the landing party stormed the cliffs and won the trenches.
The Worcester Regiment having landed, attempts were made to break a way to the right, so as to join hands with the men on V Beach. All the land between the two beaches was heavily wired and so broken that it gave much cover to the enemy. Many brave Worcesters went out to cut the wires and were killed; the fire was intense, there was no getting further. The trenches already won were secured and improved, the few available reserves were hurried up, and by dark, when the Turks attacked, again and again, in great force, our men were able to beat them off, and hold on to what they had won.
The Landing at X Beach (Sometimes called Implacable Landing), towards Krithia.
The men told off for this landing were the 1st Royal Fusiliers, with a working party of the Anson Battalion, R.N.D.