Naval Operations in the Dardanelles Campaign

[Pelican]

HMS HYTHE: DEEP DIVE ON TRAGIC GALLIPOLI WRECK

Turkish wreck-hunter SELCUK KOLAY has done it again. This time he has tracked down the last missing British ship from the WW1 Dardanelles campaign to lie at a deep but diveable depth. In a DIVERNET EXCLUSIVE, we share the author’s equally deep dive into the background story of those onboard – and his team’s recent technical dives on the wreck

On 28 October, 1915, about to land her troops at Cape Helles, Gallipoli, the ferry HMS Hythe was struck by a larger vessel, an empty troop-carrier called HMS Sarnia. The Hythe sank in 10 minutes, with the deaths of some 155 souls.

The majority of the dead were members of the 1st/3rd Kent Field Company, Royal Engineers and men from Kent. Their captain, David Reginald Hermon Phillip Salomons, was among them.

My interest in the Hythe began when, on an Internet auction site, I noticed a simple WW1 Victory medal named to “2543 SP R.T.EDSER R.E.”.

A quick check showed that 20-year-old Reginald Thomas Edser had died from his wounds and been buried at Alexandria in Egypt on 14 December, 1915, after being evacuated from Gallipoli.

I secured the medal, and found that Edser had lived at 48 Goods Station Yard in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, adjacent to the workplace of his father James, a railway-engine keeper. He was one of many young men to be lost at the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, but his military service number struck me as quite low for such a large corps as the Royal Engineers. I decided to investigate a little further.
Continues, including photos, at - https://divernet.com/world-dives/hms-hy ... -wreck/333

For more general information about the naval campaign in connection with Gallipoli see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_ope ... _campaign3