Irish Soldier Describes World War I Hell In Newly Discovered Letter
Irishman Captain Billy Richards describes the hellish experience of fighting during the first World War for the British Army at Suvla Bay in Gallipoli on August 10th, 1915. His letter has come to light the same time as Irish president Mary McAleese is making a visit to Turkey and Gallipoli.Richards served with the 6th Battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers and wrote the letter for his father, he was also an uncle of novelist Jennifer Johnston.
"We have been fighting for four days and I am sorry to say may have lost most of the battalion,"
"We were doing fatigues for the first two days and only lost about 10 men but yesterday morning about 3am, we were called up to stop a counter- attack. In about two hours we lost 12 officers and about 450 men. How I got through I shall never understand, the shrapnel and bullets were coming down like hail."
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My great, great Uncle John Ivison was killed in World War I at Gallipoli, Turkey and that is where he is buried at the Lone Pine cemetary there. I still have his last letter written a few weeks before his death when he was in Egypt. He was British but fought for the Austrailian army. Really sad with a young fellow looking forward to his future and not knowing that he would be dead within a month. I tracked him down at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that a current friend in the Canadian military gave me.