FROME Family History Group welcomed Jim Clipson to their October meeting where an appreciative audience were given the opportunity to see photographs and descriptions of a part of the world that most of us will not have the chance to visit.
He made a decision to visit as many cemeteries and memorials as he could, often cycling as a way of making the trip more arduous as a tribute to those who died.
Jim’s interest in visiting war graves and memorials came from the discovery, when he was about eight, that his great uncle and grandfather both served in the First World War and his great uncle did not return. Grandfather Thomas went to the Dardanelles with the Royal Munster Fusiliers and came back after a war that took him to Gallipoli, Bulgaria, Palestine and finally to France for the last hundred days.
Thomas’s brother Michael joined the Welch Regiment and was killed a few days after landing at Suvla Bay in August 1915. He is remembered on the Cape Helles Memorial on the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula together with two of the four men from Frome. The two that are commemorated on the Heles Memorial are Albert Frank Webley and William Mortimer. Robert Toop and Henry Victor Crees are remembered on the Lone Pine Memorial.
A visit to Suvla Bay where the landings took place was not without its difficulties. The road petered out into a track and Jim was chased over a wall by a pack of wild dogs but he managed to get very close to the landing place of the amphibious vehicle which was part of the August Offensive, the final British attempt to break the deadlock of the Battle of Gallipoli.
The operation was supported by HMS M33, a floating gun platform built in 1915 on the orders of Winston Churchill. HMS M33 has since been restored and can be seen by the public at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
The four Frome men received a salute from retired Naval Officer Jim at the end of a successful mission.
Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 29th November where Sue Latham and Chris Featherstone will show members some of the resources available at Frome Heritage Museum.
