Gallipoli, Cape Helles, April 1915

This brief memoir is the apologia by the Captain of the British Battleship 'Implacable' - the only warship that successfully landed men at X Beach on Gallipoli's Cape Helles on 25th April 1915. Captain Lockyer succeeded where other Captains failed by bringing his ship in close to the shore and raked the beaches themselves with shellfire from its 12" guns - disobeying orders to concentrate his fire on the coastal ridges above the beaches. Captain Lockyer writes that had other ships behaved as 'Implacable' did, the attacking soldiers of 29th Division would not have gone into what he calls a 'Death Trap'. He blames this on a change of the original orders to shell the beaches which was made only four days before the landings. This book, then, short though it is, is a notable and controversial contribution to the tragic history of the Gallipoli campaign which should not be missed by any serious student of the subject.