Families pay tribute to those that fought at Gallipoli 100 years after campaign started

Families from across the UK travelled to the capital for the special event on Saturday, which was attended by the Queen.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the campaign, which took place during the First World War in Turkey.

Descendants took part in a march past the Cenotaph in Whitehall, or watching from a special VIP area.

Each year on April 25, Anzac Day is commemorated. It remembers the day in 1915 when thousands of Australian, New Zealand, British, Irish, French and Indian troops first stormed the beaches at what became known as Anzac Cove in the Gallipoli Penninsula.

It became the main base of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) operation during the eight month campaign.

At the end of the campaign 130,000 troops from both sides had died, including 8,700 Australians and 2,779 New Zealand troops.

Among those at the London event at the weekend were three families from Weymouth, Dorchester and Portland, who have shared their ancestor’s stories.

Weymouth resident Elizabeth Thomas’ grandfather Francis Albert House, served at Gallipoli and she has his postcards and journal.

He was born in 1892 and joined the Royal Garrison Artillery as a boy soldier. He had served for eight years before he went to Gallipoli.

He manned the biggest British gun at Gallipoli right up until the evacuation in December 1915. As the troops were evacuating they tried to load the gun onto a barge, but it tipped over with the weight and he went into the sea.

He wrote a journal about his time in the war, including about how once they had to survive without water for three days and sometimes there was no food.

Mrs Thomas said: “The ordeals and what he went through it was unbelievable.”

She added that his journal was a very factual account of what had happened. She said: “He’s very modest. He describes what happened without any sort of patting himself on the back. It’s a very factual account of how it was.”

His parents were from Hazelbury Bryan in Dorset, and his father was in the army and Francis House was born in Dover Castle, when his father was posted to Dover.

Francis House wrote a complete account of his time in Gallipoli called ‘My Career.’ He got TB when fighting in Gallipoli and in Salonica and was invalided home in 1918, a few months before the war ended.

He died a few years after the war ended aged 29.

He had two sons and six grandchildren. Mrs Thomas represented the family at the ceremony together with her husband Geoffrey.

Mrs Thomas said: “I have always been immensely proud of my grandfather.”

She said reading his book, it was amazing what happened out there and how he survived. She added: “I felt I owed it to him to go.”

FORMER Mayor of Portland Les Ames laid a wreath at the Weymouth Anzac Memorial at the weekend.

His father, Henry Charles Ames, fought with the New Zealand and Australian forces at Gallipoli. They were then sent to the Western Front and the Somme.

Mr Ames said: “He was badly gassed in the Somme. He lost his sight for a while.”

He died in 1944 of the wounds he had initially suffered in his 1914-18 service.

Mr Ames laid a wreath on behalf of the Weymouth and Portland Residents Association. He said he felt it was even more poignant to remember this year on the centenary of the start of the campaign.

Stella New, 61, from Portland said her grandfather’s diaries show a glimpse into what life was really like during the First World War.
She took part in the march past the Cenetoph with her sister Jill Wright and nephew Jim Wright.
Her grandfather Thomas Rowatt was the recipient of an OBE and the military medal.

He was born on November 7, 1879 and was living in Scotland and working as assistant keeper in the Technological Department at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh when the First World War broke out.
 

Mrs New said: “The Admiralty asked the Institutes of Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers to raise a body of trained engineers for service with the Royal Naval Division.
“He joined up on September 26 in London, less than four months before his 35th birthday, after which he would have been too old to enlist.”
 

He was first posted to Walmer in Kent and trained as a signaller. It was here he first met Mrs New’s grandmother Evelyn Morton.
The company went through Blandford on their way to Bristol and from there sailed to Gallipoli.
 

They disembarked onto the beach under shell fire on April 29, 1915.
Thomas Rowatt kept a diary of his time in Gallipoli. Mrs New said that it was a fascinating glimpse into life in the trenches, documenting how they were always short of fresh drinking water and it was either feast or famine- either lots of bread and no cigarettes or no bread and lots of cigarettes.
She said: “It’s the bits that get left out of the history books.”
The diary states that apart from sea bathing, the men stayed in their same clothes for six months.
 

When he arrived Mr Rowatt describes Gallipoli as beautiful, covered in ‘all shades of green,’ with olive trees and flowers.
But his diary entry later says: “Between shells, wheel tracks and men tramping about and enveloping all the dust, the whole landscape soon took on a uniform dust colour.”
The diary also describes how the men had to keep their food covered as they had a lot of trouble with flies. There was also dysentery in the camp.
 

He was wounded in the leg by shrapnel on October 31, 1915, and transferred by hospital ship to Malta. After convalescence he was transferred to Alexandria, then to Mudros in the Greek Islands, from where he sailed to France on May 19, 1916, where he joined the fight there.
 

After the war he returned to the UK and married Evelyn Morton in 1919. The couple then moved back to Scotland and became keeper at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh and eventually became director from 1934 to 1944, for which he received the OBE.
He died on April 7, 1950.
Mrs New said she was very proud to march in the ceremony.
She said: “I’m extremely proud of him.”

Selina Moore’s grandfather was Australian and was awarded the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery at the battle of Lone Pine in Gallipoli.
Mrs Moore, 63, from Dorchester, attended the London ceremony with her aunt Anne Pen-Symons, 90.
Her grandfather, William Symons, was born in Melbourne, Australia. His ancestors had emigrated to Australia to be gold prospectors and had originally been tin miners in Cornwall.

He was a lieutenant in the AIF- the Australian Imperial Force, and he fought in both World Wars. He was gassed in the Second World War while leading a group out of harm’s way.
The battle of Lone Pine at Gallipoli went on from August 6-9, 1915. During this he received the VC.
He got shrapnel in his hand from the Gallipoli campaign.
He survived both wars and died on June 25, 1948.

A card that came with the VC medal reads:‘Lt Symons led the right section of the captured trenches and repelled counter attacks with great coolness.
‘At 5am on August 9 the enemy attacked Jacob’s Trench where six officers were killed or wounded and part of it was lost.
‘Lt Symons was then instructed to retake the SAP, so he organised and led a charge driving the enemy out.
‘He then rebuilt the barricade, killed two enemy with his revolver. After further attacks he withdrew to overhead cover, leaving 15 meters of trench to the enemy, so that another barricade could be erected.
‘The enemy continued to attack and twice fired barricade woodwork, but Lt Symons led rushes that drove them back. He survived the war and died on June 25, 1948.

He was commemorated at the garden of remembrance in Melbourne and his VC resides at the Australia War Memorial in Canberra.’
Mrs Moore said that she was very proud of her grandfather.
She said: “He was never proud. He never mentioned it to anyone. He was incredibly brave. I have always been told that he never boasted about it.
“He commented that the Turkish were very brave people.”

Between the two World Wars he came to England with Mrs Moore’s grandmother and worked here for a while.
They had three daughters and five grandchildren.
Mrs Moore will be going out to Turkey in August for the commemoration of the battle of Lone Pine.

Her mum Nym Binnie, 92, was unable to attend the ceremony in London but watched it on TV. She said she was very proud of her father.
Mrs Moore’s sister Sarah Kellam was one of the small number chosen to go out to Turkey for the commemorations out there at the weekend.