Thirty-two cutters filled with British troops advanced steadily across the sea under a brightening sky. The men clutched their rifles and peered at a crescent of sand a few hundred yards away, fortified by barbed wire strung across wooden posts. Just beyond the beach rose rugged limestone cliffs covered in heavy brush. It was a few minutes after dawn on April 25, 1915, and the 1st Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers was preparing to land on W Beach on the southern end of the Gallipoli Peninsula. “It might have been a deserted land we were nearing in our little boats,” remembered Capt. Richard Willis, commander of C Company. “Then, crack!
The stroke oar of my boat fell forward to the angry astonishment of his mates.” Chaos broke out as soldiers tried desperately to escape a hail of bullets raking across the beach and the boats. “Men leapt out of the boats into deep water, encumbered with their rifles and their 70 pounds of kit,” recalled Willis, “and some of them died right there, while others reached the land only to be cut down on the barbed wire.”
