[August]

25 April 1915.

The Gallipoli landings begin.

The main landings were made at 'V' Beach, beneath the old Seddülbahir fortress and at 'W' Beach, a short distance to the west on the other side of the Helles headland. The covering force from the Royal Munster Fusiliers and Hampshires landed from a converted collier, SS River Clyde, which was run aground beneath the fortress so that the troops could disembark via ramps to the shore. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers landed at 'V' Beach from open boats. At 'W' Beach, the Lancashire Fusiliers also landed in open boats, on a shore overlooked by dunes and obstructed with barbed wire. On both beaches the Ottoman defenders occupied good defensive positions and inflicted many casualties on the British infantry as they landed. Troops emerging one-by-one from sally ports on the River Clyde were shot by machine-gunners at the Seddülbahir fort. Of the first 200 soldiers to disembark, only 21 men reached the beach.

As at Anzac, the Ottoman defenders were too few to defeat the landing but inflicted many casualties and contained the attack close to the shore. By the morning of 25 April 1915, out of ammunition and left with nothing but bayonets to meet the attackers on the slopes leading up from the beach to the heights of Chunuk Bair, the 57th Infantry Regiment received orders from Kemal, commanding the 19th Division: "I do not order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can come forward and take our places". Every man of the regiment was either killed in action or wounded. As a sign of respect, the 57th Regiment no longer exists in the Turkish Army

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipo...paign#Landings