HILL Edward

A photograph of Private E. Hill, can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 6th November 1915, available at Worcestershire Archives.

The following information has been researched by Geoff Hill:
On the 1891 and 1901 Census’, Edward Hill’s family is recorded as living at 22 Boughton Street, St Johns, Worcester.

The eight month campaign in Gallipoli was fought by British, Empire and French forces in an attempt to force Turkey out of the war, to relieve the deadlock of the Western Front in France and Belgium, and to open a supply route to Russia through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea.

The Allies landed on the peninsula on the 25th – 26th April 1915; the 29th Division at Cape Helles in the south and the Australian and New Zealand Corps north of Gaba Tepe on the west coast, an area soon known as Anzac. On the 6th August, further landings were made at Suvla, just north of Anzac, and the climax of the campaign came in early August when simultaneous assaults were launched on all three fronts. However, the difficult terrain and stiff Turkish resistance soon led to the stalemate of trench warfare. From the end of August, no further serious action was fought and the lines remained unchanged. The peninsula was successfully evacuated in December and early January 1916.

In August 1915, the 9th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment was engaged in the Battle of Sari Bair. The Battle of Sari Bair, also known as the August Offensive, was the final attempt made by the British in August 1915 to seize control of the Gallipoli peninsula from the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the 9th August the Allies retained only a foothold on Chunuk Bair. The 9th Worcestershire Regiment was among the forces with the Australian 4th Infantry Brigade who became lost in the Sari Bair ravines. On the 10th August the Ottomans, led from the front by Colonel Mustafa Kemal, counter-attacked and regained control of the entire Sari Bair ridge.