HEROES OF GALLIPOLI [Main Title]

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  • Title: HEROES OF GALLIPOLI [Main Title]
  • Film Number: IWM 1058
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: British and Australian forces at Anzac, Cape Helles, and Suvla, Gallipoli, July-September 1915.
  • Description: 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.
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM (IWM 1058)
  • Featured Period: 1914-1918
  • Production Date: 1920
  • Production Country: Australia
  • Production Details: Australian War Memorial (Production sponsor) Bean, C E W (Production individual) Ashmead Bartlett, E (Production individual) Brooks, E (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Ashmead Bartlett, Ellis (person) British Army, Div 29 (regiment/service) British Army, Corps 5 (regiment/service) British Army, 63rd Division (regiment/service) Royal Navy, Royal Naval Div (regiment/service) Royal Navy, Royal Naval Air Service (regiment/service) British Army, Egyptian Labour Corps (regiment/service) British Army, Australian Imperial Force, ANZAC Corps (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: engineering, military, Australian (object name) defences, Australian - emplacement (object name) communications, Australian military - message (object name) weapons, Australian - smallarm: SMLE rifle (object name) equipment, Australian - fire control: sniperscope (object name) equipment, Australian - personal: trench periscope (object name) ships, British auxiliary - transport: River Clyde & [expended] (object name) armour, British - armoured car: Rolls-Royce (object name) combat, Australian - artillery bombardment [D] (object name) communications, Australian military - wire (object name) operations, British military - movement: ship (object name) medical, British military - movement (object name) animals, mammals: horse (object name) animals, mammals: mule (object name) society, British military - sustenance (object name) combat, Australian: [+] (object name) 01/3(496.1) (event) Turkey & Gallipoli peninsula (geography) Greece & Imbros (geography) Summer (concept)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: English Subtitle language: English
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 1157 ft; Running time: 20 mins
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Notes: Production: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett was originally sent to Gallipoli as the War Correspondent for the London-based national newspapers by the Newspaper Proprietors' Association. At the behest of Sir Alfred Butt, the theatrical entrepreneur, he took a film camera on his return to Gallipoli in July 1915. At Gallipoli Ashmead-Bartlett met Ernest Brooks, the official Royal Navy still photographer, who helped him take his film - notably the scene in which Ashmead-Bartlett appears. The film was subsequently given to Butt, who showed it in London. In 1919 Butt was approached by the Australian War Records Section, who obtained a copy of the print for the planned Australian War Memorial; this was edited by Dr C E W Bean, the Australian Official Historian, into its present form. What became of the original film is not known. The Imperial War Museum obtained its copy of the Australian War Memorial version in 1965. The main source for this account is Nicholas Hiley, research student at the Open University into British propaganda in the First World War. Summary: Bean's title written in 1919 dating opening Anzac beach scene to May 1915 may have been intended to convey the start of the Dardanelles Expedition; in fact Ashmead-Bartlett did not begin filming on the Peninsula till July 1915. (Information based on "Gallipoli on film" by George Imashev, "Wartime", Issue 18, Autumn 2002.) Remarks: not the greatest film ever taken, but the only one of this campaign. The slightly primitive look gives it at times a surreal appearance. The scene of Australians firing is genuine combat, but according to Hiley what happened is that Brooks asked the men to do something, whereupon they began the fire-fight
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