Great War Spearhead II - Gallipoli 1915 in heerr... 1/1 scale (part 7): W beach (Lancashire´s beach) on the 25th of April

“The scene on W Beach was like Dante’s Inferno; a terrible sight. Wounded were calling out for help and there were several heaps of bodies, about 20 or 30 in each heap. We lined up on the beach, but the Turks started shelling and we were troubled by shrapnel, so we made our way to a position on the slope above the beach”.

W Beach (Tekke bay for the Turks) is famous for its "six VCs before breakfast" and was an awful place of carnage for the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, 29th infantry division, who lost 709 men killed and wounded out of 1029. This picture is taken from the Turkish trenches manned by a company of 240 men with a machine-gun (the Turkish sources deny the existence of this MG, but other sources even speak of two MGs which allowed for enfilade fire...). 

At the beach itself there are plenty of remnants of these days, particularly several boats and pieces from the two artificial piers built by the British.

The boat remnants from the previous picture is probably this one circled in red. 

The Turkish defences not only had trenches but also mines and barbed wire at water line. The casemates and pill box you can see in this picture  are from the 40s and prepared for eventual WW2  and not contemporaneous of this action. The stone structures to the right are the remnants of one of the piers. 

Aproximately from the same spot as in the previous picture there is this photo that shows how busy was X beach during the rest of 1915/beggining of 1916. In fact this beach was one of the main evacuation spots for the entire campaign when it was realized how bad things were. 

The beach has a semicircular shape and its quite high on its exits which is  ideal for defence. 

From the beach you can see the road built by the British starting at sand beach level and continuing almost to the top and then to the east. 

The second wave of assault, after seeing the dreadful casualties suffered by the first wave decided to veer a bit to the west and disembark at this spot of the beach, very close the casemates built years later. 

Next: British infantry for 1914-15 in Metropolitan uniform.