Gallipoli Diary 1915

By Alec Riley (Author); Michael Crane and Bernard de Broglio (Editors)

Little Gully Publishing, 2021

David F. Beer, Reviewer

Frontline Trench at Cape Helles, Gallipoli

I don’t think there’s a Pulitzer or Academy Award for literary archaeology, but if one existed, I would nominate this book. Its two editors have uncovered materials written by Alec Riley, a soldier who spent time in a Divisional Signal Company on Gallipoli before being medically evacuated. Some 20 years after the war, Riley wrote a book based on his notes and a 1930 return trip to the battlefield but, sadly, was unable to find a publisher in a world tired of war literature. Eventually, he left the materials to the IWM, marked “For the Imperial War Museum (if it is of any interest)” and they sat in the Imperial War Museum’s archives for more than 60 years (p. 242).

Although Riley and his pals arrive on Helles on 6 May 1915, 11 days after the main landings had taken place, they see plenty of evidence of the earlier activities as their boat delivers them ashore:

On one of the decks there was a giant heap of torn and bloody clothing taken from the Anzac casualties after their landing. The strong sun made it smell so it was sorted out, and most of it was thrown overboard. (p. 14)

Despite this, he and his small group of fellow signalers are intrigued and excited about what’s going on. Two interesting aspects soon emerge in the text. First, as signalers they are a small and relatively independent group who are not tied down to the life that the PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry) lead in the front trenches. Drills and inspections are rare for them as they busy themselves with their signaling equipment and communications, broken wires being their biggest nightmare. Yet they still have freedom when not on telephone shifts to wander around and explore their surroundings—which Riley certainly does.

Signalers at Work

For their communication tasks the signalers use only wire; even the most primitive forms of radio are not mentioned. We get interesting glimpses of their work with their equipment and the frustrations of poor communication. They are not above occasionally playing tricks on those on the other end of the line, but the constant problem of broken wire keeps them busy:

In its simplest form our work was to lay wires, repair them when broken, send and receive messages. Sometimes the messages were full of interest, and sometimes there was excitement in getting them through. Repairing breaks was even more exciting at times [an understatement!] (p.114).

The other aspect of life on Helles is the lack of knowledge of a war that was going on elsewhere and of how the Gallipoli operation was part of it. “We did not know much about what was happening on the larger scale…We knew quite a lot about what happened on the small scale” (p. 178). Inevitably the initial interest and excitement Riley described fades away, innocence is replaced by experience, and life becomes grim and focused. Although the signalers can get away from it all sometimes and go walking or bathing in the nullahs (creeks), they inevitably see and suffer the life surrounding them:

Day after day, we watched the PBI [Poor Bloody Infantry] going up and down the nullah, to and from the trenches. Some of them looked like old, tottering men, bowed, stooping, and most of their faces were colourless, except that they were grey or dirty. Now and then we heard some odd remark, but there was very little talking, and less laughing. There was so little to laugh about, now. Even when a smile was raised, it was very soon cancelled. (p. 127)

Riley Back at Helles, 1930

One Saturday afternoon Riley has to go up to a frontline trench:

The trenches were crowded with dirty, ragged, worn-out officers and men. They sprawled everywhere, many of them asleep, and we trod carefully so as not to disturb them. It is impossible to describe how these men were living. Tall men slouched, thin, round-shouldered, bandaged over their septic sores dirty, unshaved, unwashed. Men were living like swine, or worse than swine. About these crowded trenches there hung the smell of latrines and the dead. Flies and lice tormented men who had hardly enough strength to scratch or fan the flies off for a few seconds. (p. 149)

As the months go by, conditions on Helles gradually wear Riley and all his signal section down. They squabble about food portions and how much shade or groundsheet each should get. Telephone duties get on their nerves. Flies and lice torture them, and their sores become septic. More backbiting takes place. They care less and less about the ragged and dirty nature of their clothes. They even become inured to pilfering what they need from the dead. Intestinal disease plagues them, and they pray for a “gadget-wound” (the equivalent of a minor Blighty), which would take them away from the hellhole to a hospital ship blinking out in the bay and a bed to rest in (p. 138).

By the end of August, Riley is constantly unwell. On the 28th, he is “feeling wrong again" (p. 185). The next day he goes to the MO (Medical Officer), who gives him a pill and tells him he is unfit for duty and must rest in his dug-out, where he finds “the lice seem to multiply themselves by themselves. They prevented us from resting…. The heat was great.” The next day he stumbles to the MO again and is “awarded half an ounce of castor oil, and ordered to do as before (p. 187). In spite of this, he manages to help out with signaling duties for a few days—with very frequent trips to the latrine. He is finally evacuated from Helles to Mudros on 10 September.

On his final visit to his MO, who puts him on a milk diet this time, he describes himself thus: 

I had a septic place on my right hand and was walking with the back of my boot doubled in and the boot tied on. I was not wearing my tunic, my shorts were ragged, my helmet battered and dirty—for it had been my pillow for weeks, and with the top bashed in, it made a good one—my hands, legs and foot bandaged. (p.194)

Of course, he’s happy to leave Helles, but he also leaves memories of good friends and interesting explorations of the peninsula, some of which he photographed and are included in the book. We occasionally find subtle humor in his writing, too. In addition to the memoir itself, the editors give us plenty of supplemental information, including Riley’s short articles that started them on their search and biographies of him and other men who appear in the memoir. Call signs for the various signal stations are listed and the book concludes with additional notes and a geographical description of the Dardanelles and the peninsula. An intense and informative read indeed. I highly recommend it.

David F. Beer