In the last summer vacations I visited Gallipoli. On the first day I started with the coastal forts along the eastern part of the Gelibolu peninsula. In fact this is almost mandatory as the boat leads you to Kilitbahir, from where everything starts. I took plenty pictures of many forts, and guns but I will keep them for me as there are much better pictures of them in the Web free to see.
Like that I will concentrate this post on rare period photos the guns and emplacements from a small museum (may be temporary exhibition?) close to Kilitbahir coastal forts. These pictures shows some of the Turkish heavy coastal guns that created havoc on the British/French fleet. There was a total of 20 of these big guns of German origin mostly, some were British, in a grand total of 80 guns if counting the smaller calibers. This number was clearly insufficient and the guns were in open emplacements, but even so, due the the Turkish tenacity, the Anglo-French arrogance and some brilliant feats of arms like the one from the Nusrat minelayer, the Allies were forced to go for landing operations on the south and western parts of the Gallipoli peninsula in order to silence the guns and then reach Constantinople.
A 355mm L/35 Krupp gun. These big ones were used at forts 16, 19 and 20.
On the visit to the Military Museum at Istambul I took the picture of a 355mm L/35 were we can see the famous future of corporal Seyit carrying on its back a huge shell ( which helped to sink HMS Ocean). The matching of Sayit with this gun is in fact wrong as Seyit and its crew were manning a 240mm L/35 Krupp gun. Sayit, a very powerful man for sure, would have an impossible task when placing the huge 355mm shell into the breech. Eventually, after the battle Sayit was even asked to repeat the feat and place a 240mm shell in the breech by the force of arms and he simply couldn't. Apparently he wasn't lying as the fact had many witnesses and the story proves that soldiers can do incredible things under the stress of battle.
The left side of the 355mm gun. Not an easy thing to scratch build :)
The 150mm L/26 Krupp guns ( don´t take them for the 150mm Vickers model) of forts 6 and 9.
Another view of the same guns.
The 150mm L/26 in detail. The equipments and uniforms of the personnel involved in these period pictures also shows the variety and also the differences between ordinary artillerymen and officers.
Remains of Turkish Trenches facing the Dardanelles close to Çimenlik castle.
Just for the sake of curiosity, and to see the power of the naval allied fleet, you can see in an inner wall of Çimenlik castle and unexploded shell (yellow light) that bounced inside the castle and left a path of destruction.
Next: part 2 for the British beaches or a quick re-entering at WW2 North Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment