Dated: The Dardanelles, 1915.
Description: Albumen print, 48 x 70 mm., manuscript caption in old hand verso.
Condition: faded but very good.

An original photograph, in a small format, of an RN destroyer “landing troops at Gaba Tepe,” during the Gallipoli campaign.

The ship depicted is, as the caption records, very likely to be the HMS Grampus, a coal-fired Beagle-class Destroyer with a distinctive set of three funnels (originally called HMS Nautilus). The ship was known to have been heavily involved in the whole campaign, beginning with the part it played in the futile attempt to rescue the crew of the British submarine E15 in the week before the landings on 25 April.

The intriguing caption notes that this view shows the vessel landing troops at Gaba Tepe, which is certainly plausible, and may relate to the major raid that went ashore on the right flank of the Anzac landings on 4 May but was repulsed by vicious artillery fire and withdrew the same day: it is not immediately clear whether the Grampus took part. Various sources do have the Grampus cruising in the vicinity of Gaba Tepe throughout the early months of the campaign, and the ship did definitely land men of the 9th Battalion AIF in this sector on 27 May and well as troops from the Manchester Regiment at Suvla Bay on 6 August. Like several of the other Beagle-class destroyers, the Grampus was heavily involved throughout the campaign.

References: AWM; diary of John Duncan McLeod, 9th Battalion AIF (online).