An Irishman’s death at Gallipoli: Private George Hunt, 29 June 1915

A British 60 pounder Mk I battery in action on a cliff top at Cape Helles, Gallipoli, possibly in June 1915.

Photo by Ernest Brooks

This is photograph Q 13340 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 1900-61)

Throughout the month of June 1915 the slaughter at Gallipoli continued, with an enormous loss of life on both sides.  By mid-July, British forces had advanced just 500 yards at Cape Helles at a cost of more than 17,000 casualties.

 

Australian troops burying Turkish dead during the truce at Anzac Cove on 24 May 1915. With over 3,000 Turks having been killed attacking ANZAC positions on 19 May the truce allowed for the burial of the decomposing corpses.

Image credit: Imperial War Museum Q 42315

Turkish losses for the same period came to more than 40,000.  Their commander, Mustafa Kemal, later to become first President of the Turkish republic, had proved to be an outstanding leader, placing himself only a few hundred yards from the front line. He had told his forces before the conflict: “I don’t order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other troops and commanders can come and take our places.”

 

Soldiers of the 6th Battalion, Manchester Regiment, advancing against Turkish positions during the Third Battle of Krithia, 4 June 1915.

Image credit: Imperial War Museum Q 69514

 Although not from Devon, Private George Hunt, service number 11151, had links to the Lower Otter Valley. Born in the village of Fethard, County Tipperarary, in 1891, he was the son of George and Mary Hunt and had enlisted in Dublin with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

The 1st Dublins, as they were known, landed at V Beach, Cape Helles on 25 April. They were the first to land, and suffered heavy casualties from a withering hail of machine-gun fire from the Turkish defenders. Most of the casualties did not even get out of their boats, while others drowned in the attempt, mostly due to the equipment they carried. George Hunt was killed in action on 29 June 1915, aged 24.

It seems that his parents had left Ireland prior to the outbreak of war; they are recorded as living in a house called Jutland, in Greenway Lane, Budleigh Salterton, where his father was the town’s Chief Coastguard.

 

Pic: Private Hunt’s name has been highlighted on this image of the St Peter’s Church memorial

His name appears on Budleigh Salterton’s war memorial as well as on the brass plaque in the town’s St Peter’s Church 

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

He is also commemorated on the Helles Memorial in Turkey.  However at the time of writing his name is absent from the Irish Memorials website at http://www.irishwarmemorials.ie

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!! 

Defending the Ypres Salient: Sidney Alfred Demant 12 June 2015

 War memorials come in all shapes and sizes.

Not many people would associate this drain cover with the Great War. But whenever I see it as I walk down my garden path I think of Alfred and the son that he lost just a few years before he built our 1920s house on Exmouth Road in Budleigh Salterton.

Alfred Demant had moved from Highgate in London to live in the Budleigh area at some time after 1911. He and his wife Amelia Maude Louise had taken up residence in Ivy Cottage – now Yew Tree Cottage – next to the Baptist Chapel in Little Knowle.

Their sons Sidney Alfred and William Harold were born in London in 1891 and 1893 respectively.  Their daughter Winifred Constance was born in 1897. At an early stage in the war Sidney joined the 8th Battalion of The Rifle Brigade. Formed at Winchester on 21 August 1914, the Battalion was made up mostly of volunteers, part of Lord Kitchener’s New Army. It came under the command of 41st Brigade in 14th (Light) Division, moving to Aldershot and going on to Grayshott on the Hampshire/ Surrey border in November before returning to Aldershot in March 1915. Sidney Demant was with the 8^th Battalion when it landed in France at Boulogne on 19 May before proceeding to the Belgian town of Ypres.

 

Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to May 1915 by Richard Jack (1866–1952). Image credit Canadian War Museum 19710261-0172

The Second Battle of Ypres was fought from 22 April to 25 May 1915 for control of the strategically important town. The Ypres Salient  – the area around the town projecting into enemy territory – saw some of the major battles of World War One.

The remains of trenches at Sanctuary Wood
©  Mo Sandford FRPS 2014
More of Mo Sandford's remarkable photos of World War I battlefields can be seen here

Two kilometres east of the town is an area known as Sanctuary Wood, so  named by British troops in November 1914 when it was used as shelter. It later became fiercely fought over by troops from both sides, and is popular with visitors today because of the way in which the trenches have been preserved. 

On 8 May 1915 the Germans had begun a major attack into the Ypres Salient known as the Battle of Frezenberg Ridge, the objective being to smash through the British front line. 

Bailleul cemetery

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Rifleman Demant was killed in action on 12 June, aged 24. He was buried in the communal cemetery in the French town of Bailleul, near  the Belgian border. A fortnight after his death, the 8^th Battalion would experience the first use of flamethrowers by the Germans at Hooge, Belgium.

 The Demant family remained in the area. Both Sidney’s brother William Harold and his sister Winifred Constance married local people. William, who also enlisted in the Rifle Brigade, married Gladys Hitt and lived in Chapel Street in Budleigh Salterton. 

Winifred married John James Ratcliff; the Steamer Steps were previously known as Ratcliff End. Alfred and Amelia Demant remained in Little Knowle until their deaths in 1923 and 1943 respectively. They are buried in St Peter’s Burial Ground, on Moor Lane in Budleigh Salterton.

 

St Peter’s Church memorial

Sidney himself is remembered on the town’s war memorial and on the brass memorial in St Peter’s Church, Budleigh Salterton.  But it’s the drain cover on my garden path by which I will remember him.

For more of my observations about Budleigh drain covers go here

 ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!! 

  

A DSO “for most conspicuous gallantry” at Gallipoli on 4 June, 1915: Major General Manners Ralph Willmott Nightingale CB CMG CEI DSO

The 4th Gurkha Rifles moving through Gully Ravine, 8 June 1915.  Image credit: Imperial War Museum Q 69514

http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/22-rare-photos-of-the-gallipoli-campaign

A veteran of the Gallipoli Campaign, Major General Manners Ralph Willmott Nightingale (1871–1956)  was severely wounded during the Third Battle of Krithia in June 1915. However he survived long enough to enjoy living in Budleigh Salterton, at Reed Thatch on Vales Road.

Born in Sidmouth in 1871, he came of a family who had been resident in South Africa since the 1830s and was the first South African to serve in a Gurkha regiment.

Manners Nightingale was educated at the Diocesan College,in Rondebosch, Cape Town, known as ‘Bishop’s’. He was subsequently nominated by the University of the Cape of Good Hope to a military cadetship at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.  He passed out of the RMC Sandhurst in 1889, and the following year was commissioned a second-lieutenant in the Cheshire Regiment in 1890.

In 1891 he transferred to the Indian Army, being appointed to the 5th Gurkha Rifles, and began an affiliation with the Regiment that would span over fifty-years and culminate in his being appointed Colonel of the Regiment.

He initially served in Burma, taking part in the Tirah campaign (1897-1898), and in 1900 accompanying the Allied Expeditionary Force to China where he took part in the relief of Peking.

Promoted Major in 1908, Nightingale continued to serve with the 5th Gurkha Rifles during the early stages of the Great War. He was with the regiment during the Turkish attack on the vitally important Suez Canal, which took place on the 3-4 February 1915.

During the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, several battles were fought near the village of Krithia, which had been an objective of the first day of Allied landings on 25 April 1915. Over the following months, invading British Empire and French troops, who had landed near Cape Helles at the end of the peninsula, made several attempts to capture the village. It was never reached; the Turkish defenders successfully repulsed every assault.

It was during the Second Battle of Krithia on 4 June that Lieutenant Rafe Beddy of the 5th Gurkha Rifles was killed in action as described elsewhere in this blog. 

Major Nightingale had a narrow escape during the fierce resistance that the regiment encountered. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order “for most conspicuous gallantry” as the London Gazette citation put it, “in heading an attack up a difficult spur after he had been wounded.”

   

The citation went on to describe how, “he reached the crest and was again wounded, but coming back a few yards he rallied his men, and again led them on. He was then wounded a third time, but still endeavoured to advance until he fainted.”  He also received a mentioned in despatches.

The General Officer Commanding, in referring to the award of the DSO to Nightingale, added that had it not been for the unprecedented crop of gallant deeds produced during the battle for the Dardanelles, he would have put forward the Major’s name for the award of the Victoria Cross itself.  

Following his convalescence, Nightingale rejoined the regiment in India, the 5th Gurkhas having suffered heavily at Gallipoli. Nightingale was subsequently given command of the 1st battalion, 5th Gurkha Regiment, going on to fight in the Mesopotamia Campaign.  He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1916, and then Brigadier-General, being given command of the 54th Indian Infantry Brigade from 1917 to 1922. Awarded the CMG for his part in the Mesopotamia Campaign, he was also mentioned in despatches on no fewer than six occasions.

In the post-war period he continued to serve with the Indian Army after almost forty years of distinguished military service. In 1937 he was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the 5th Royal Gurkhas. He died in the military hospital at Gibraltar in April 1956 while visiting his son, a regular officer in the British Army, and was buried in the military cemetery there.

 With acknowledgement to Ross Dix-Peek’s work on  South Africans in the Gurkha Regiment  (1891-2008) at

http://peek-01.livejournal.com/9597.html?thread=8317

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!! 

 

With the Gurkhas at Gallipoli: Lieutenant Rafe Beddy, 4 June 1915

 

  

This illustration in The Graphic of 5 December 1914, showing a Gurkha charge, was drawn by J.Dodworth from the description by an Officer of the 2nd Gurkhas. It is entitled  'India’s fighting men in action.'  

On land, following the initial invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula by Allied troops, intense fighting alternated with brief periods of consolidation. As on the Western Front, advances, followed by stalemate, led to the development of trench warfare, with many acts of bravery recorded together with heavy losses on both sides.

 

The Gurkha regimental cap badge shows two crossed kukris

  

 The Gurkha regiments in particular were notable for their heroism. Gurkha Bluff is the name given to the 300 ft (91 metre) vertical slope which had proved insurmountable to both the Royal Marines Light Infantry and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. A Gurkha unit scaled it with ease to attack an Ottoman machine-gun position which was doing significant damage to Allied forces. 

 

 

The Quarters of the Assailants of Gurkha Bluff: The Regimental Dug-Outs of the 6th Gurkha Rifles

Image credit: The Illustrated First World War from the archives of The Illustrated London News, reproduced under Creative Commons agreement 

On 4 June, the 1st Battalion of the 5th Gurkha Rifles found their way barred by a concealed trench. When Lieutenant Rafe Beddy saw a senior officer shot dead he left his place of relative safety with a machine-gun post to run across open ground and lend a hand. 

The 4th Gurkha Rifles moving through Gully Ravine, 8 June 1915.Image credit: Imperial War Museum   HU 105665   

His bravery earned him a Mention in Despatches. “By some miracle he succeeded in traversing the greater part of the intervening distance but he was then hit in the side, and died the same night,” records the regimental history.

Rafe Langdon Beddy came from a military family.  His father, Edwin Fawcett Beddy was a Colonel in the Bengal Staff Corps and Punjab Infantry. His mother Harriet Alice, née Langdon, came originally from Crediton.   

The parents had married in 1874 in India, where five of their six children were born. Two of his brothers had distinguished wartime careers: Brigadier Bertram Langdon Beddy DSO of the Army Service Corps served with the Indian Staff Corps, earning three Mentions in Despatches; another brother, Brigadier Percy Langdon Beddy CB, CMG, DSO, of the 51st Sikhs Frontier Force, died in 1945 in Budleigh Salterton where he had settled in retirement.

 

Rafe Beddy was a former pupils of Blundell's School, where his name is listed on the Great War memorial

Rafe Beddy’s name does not appear on any of the town’s war memorials but the Budleigh Salterton link is mentioned in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry, probably because his mother was living in the town, her husband having died in 1919. She and Colonel Edwin Beddy had returned to Britain by 1897, when Rafe was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.   

 

Pink Farm Cemetery, Helles, Turkey

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

 

 The family’s association with Devon was maintained with the attendance by Rafe’s three elder brothers at the United Services Preparatory College in Northam. Rafe himself attended Blundell’s School, Tiverton.  He is buried in Pink Farm Cemetery, just off the road from Sedd el-Bahr at Cape Helles, Turkey.

The Beddy family lived in West Hill Lodge on Budleigh’s West Hill for many years. Harriet Beddy died in 1941 and her unmarried sons and daughters survived into the 1960s.

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!