HEROES OF GALLIPOLI [Main Title]

British and Australian forces at Anzac, Cape Helles, and Suvla, Gallipoli, July-September 1915.

Anzac Beach in July 1915 (not "May, a month after the landing". See Notes - Summary). Men of the ANZAC Corps help build Watson's Pier. Further up the beach, caves and shelters have been dug into the hillside. Bridges' Road leads up to MacLaurin's Hill, and men bring supplies up it. A runner hands in a message at a headquarters tent. While one man watches with a trench periscope another uses a "periscope rifle" or sniper's rifle. June at V Beach, Cape Helles. The camera is on the beached SS River Clyde, still used as a headquarters. The fortress of Sedd-el-Bahr is visible in the distance, and a tented camp, probably of 29th Division, in the foreground. On high ground horses graze from shelter with men looking after them. British troops, again probably 29th Division, march up to the front. A Rolls-Royce armoured car of the Royal Naval Division stands hidden in a shelter trench, with its machine guns removed. It emerges from the trench past an RNAS lorry, and is checked over by men of the division. The Suvla operation in August starts with a view of a British bombardment falling on the Suvla positions. The harbour at Imbros island is full of old wrecks and men swimming. Troops of IX Corps and horses wait on the quay for the boats to take them over for the landing. Men of the Egyptian Labour Corps, and Turkish prisoners of war used for labour, walk around the quay. Among the wrecks in the harbour is the unidentifiable wreck of a seaplane. The men continue to wait. At Anzac the heights leading up to Plugge's Plateau are shown. Signallers lay lines along the tracks. Back at Imbros the British board their transports and lighters, which approach Suvla Bay. The Australian Naval Bridging Train is shown on 7th August on the beach helping the second line transport to land. The wounded are taken on stretchers back to the ships. Cranes and ropes are used to move stores and mules from the ships to the lighters. British officers sit in an open-air "mess" talking and eating. Back at Anzac, Australians patrol the trenches on Walker's Ridge. Shellfire, filmed from the beach, falls on the Turkish position of The Chessboard. During the attack on Sari Bair Australian troops fire out from their newly-held trenches; Ashmead-Bartlett, at the far end of the trench, rushes back to the camera as the fire starts. The view from the beach of Turkish shells falling on the 1st Australian Division position at Lone Pine.

35mm