107. Aspinall-Oglander, op. cit., pp. 29, 165.
108. Jones, op. cit., p. 57.
109. Lan-Davies to J H Dallmeyer Ltd, October 1915, in British Journal of Photography, 18 April 1919.
110. Jones, op. cit., p. 74.
111. Roskill, op. cit., pp. 241–6; TNA(PRO) AIR 1/654.
112. Ibid, p. 258; TNA(PRO) AIR 1/664.
113. Samson, op. cit., pp. 227 –8.
CHAPTER 8
Admiralty Hydrographic Surveys
While attempts to gather detailed hydrographic and other intelligence were made by the Naval Intelligence Department (NID) at points on the German coast, at the Dardanelles, apart from the regular charting operations begun by Spratt and continuing up to the outbreak of war, little additional inshore hydrographic intelligence was acquired, and the post-war Naval report (‘Mitchell Report’) on the Dardanelles operations included an appreciation of the hydrographic knowledge of the western side of the Gallipoli Peninsula, its coast, soundings, maps, etc., considered it to be ‘most inadequate’ in February 1915.1 As this was ‘the principal area from the point of view of naval war operations’, it was a serious omission:
The coast was incorrectly charted and the soundings were not only sparse, but did not in any way give an idea of the configuration of the sea bottom. No detailed survey of this area had ever been made, a survey by Captain Graves in 1840 having been confined to the immediate approaches of the Dardanelles and the Island of Tenedos, with the Archipelago and waters contiguous to it.2
However, while later hydrographic surveys by Wharton and others remedied some of these deficiencies, the Navy had to acquire such additional information as it required during the preliminary operations themselves.
Existing charts
Spratt’s remarkable charting, mapping and other operations have been described in Chapter 2. A medium-scale Admiralty Chart (one-inch to the nautical mile, or 1:72,960) No. 2429, The Dardanelles (Ancient Hellespont), From the West Entrance to Cape Nagara, was published in 1871. This crucial chart was compiled from an 1840 survey by Commander T Graves, and a specific survey by Captain T A B Spratt, assisted by Lieutenant A L Monsell, J Stokes (Master), G R Wilkinson (Acting Master), and E W Brooker (Second Master), in the paddle steamer HMS Spitfire (which Spratt had taken over from Graves in 1850) in 1855, covering The Narrows; the latter portion was separately incorporated as a larger-scale (1:29,136) inset.3 The Gulf of Saros (Xeros) portion had been surveyed by Commander Copeland RN in 1833, and ‘The remainder from various documents in the Hydrographic Office.’ The chart carried a cautionary note: ‘As there has been no complete survey of the Strait to the Eastward of Cape Nagara, the chart of that part must be used with caution.’ This deficiency was soon remedied, for later editions stated that the section from Nagara to Gallipoli [port] had been surveyed in 1872 by Commander W J L Wharton RN, Navigating Lieutenants J Millward and C H C Langdon, Lieutenant C J Fellowes and Midshipman E P Chapman, of HMS Shearwater. In 1880 Captain Wharton observed the latitude of Cape Helles Light and found it was 7 seconds south of the chart position.4
The chart The Narrows was also produced by the Admiralty at 1:22,600 in 1856,5 while another sheet, Dardanelles and Tenedos Channel was published in London by J Imray & Son in 1864 and again in 1868.6 The land details were crude and inaccurate, and clearly did not incorporate the French 1854 survey. The Salt Lake at Suvla was not shown.
The 1871 chart gave a good, firm depiction of the relief of the Gallipoli Peninsula, using hachures for which the copper plate was a very suitable medium.7 The source of information for the land area of the Peninsula was given as a ‘French Imperial Survey of 1854–5,’ clearly that by the Dépôt de Guerre. Although the hachures were based on the contours of the 1854 French survey, the outline, relief and the little detail shown of the Peninsula differed significantly from the 1854 map, and some may well have been retained from Stratt’s surveys. Spot-heights and the aqueduct and ‘fountain’ in the Helles area agree with the French map. This 1871 chart was subject to later corrections, the last before the campaign being 13 November 1913. A new edition appeared in 1914.8 It was also used by the Admiralty in February 1915 as the base for enlargements X93, 94 and 95. These are dealt with below.
No further charts of the Dardanelles had been prepared or issued before February 1915, except that an old three inches to a nautical mile (1:24,320) chart, F.019 Isthmus of Boulaïr, with adjacent anchorages, dated 1887, was issued in early 1915, as was a smaller-scale chart designated F.064, The Dardanelles and western approaches (one inch to nautical mile, or 1:72,960), which included The Narrows (2½ inches to nautical mile, or 1:29,184), issued on 22 February 1915 as an inset.9
The important report NID 838, Turkey Coast Defences, May 1908, Part II of which covered the ‘Coast Defences and Resources of the Dardanelles’, contained four charts covering the Dardanelles, one of which (Chart 3 – based on the 1871 chart) showed the fixed defences updated to December 1914, the new additions being in red.
A decision having been made in early 1915 to attack the Dardanelles, and it initially being assumed that the Navy should be able to force the Straits without help from the Army, which at this stage had no troops available, the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty under John F Parry rapidly produced a set of three special large-scale (1:24,320) fire-control charts, based on the 1871 chart, for the bombardment of the Dardanelles forts, having worked out a system for square-referencing and reporting fall-of-shot before the war.
On 5 February 1915 Admiral Sir Henry Jackson sent a memo to DAD (Director, Admiralty War Staff), DID (Director, Intelligence Division), Signal Section, COS (Chief of Staff) and Parry the Hydrographer, stating that:
A large scale chart is being prepared on a scale of 3 inches to a nautical mile, for use in the event of a bombardment of the Dardanelles Forts by the Allied Fleets, to assist spotting from ships, air craft, or land stations. The most recent practical experience has been considered in connection with the preparation of the charts, and the draft notes or explanations and instructions to be printed in the margin are attached herein for consideration and suggestions.10
These charts were all named Dardanelles from the entrance to Nagara Kalessi (Nagara Point is east of Maidos, beyond the Narrows), and were numbered X 93 (Sheet 1), X 94 (Sheet 2) and X 95 (Sheet 3). The date of production given by the Hydrographic Department for all three sheets was 16 February 1915.11 The ‘X’ designation indicated that these were ‘important and sensitive’ but ‘non-confidential’ fleet charts but, as fleet charts, they were not to be made public (‘Y’ Charts were confidential and ‘Z’ Charts were secret).
The Draft Instructions12 described the squaring system in detail. Each large numbered square was subdivided into twenty-five lettered five-inch squares (omitting ‘e’), each of which contained nine dots (in three rows of three); a typical reference to a point was 69 M 4, the last figure being the ‘dot numeral’ or, more accurately, 69 M 55-30, the four last figures representing coordinates in yards from the south and west sides of the squares (i.e. giving northing before easting, the reverse of the newly-evolved British Army practice). On the later 1:40,000 chart-map produced in Egypt in March from the War Office one-inch map, the equivalent large squares would have sides of about three-inches; because of projection differences, the squares on this chart-map had to be distorted in order to match on the ground the squares on the original 1:24,320 chart.
A note, dated 6 February 1915, by Murray F Sueter on this memo read: ‘The proposed system of dividing the chart and the W/T signals to be used are concurred in, as they are in general accordance with those at present in use in the air service.’ On 8 February Jackson suggested that 100 sets of these charts be prepared, together with sixty celluloid scales.13 On 19 February the Hydrographer was able to report that:
3 charts have now been prepared … X 93, 94 and 95, were required to cover the whole area concerned…. 100 numbered sets, of 3 charts in each set, together with 60 boxes of celluloid scales, e
ach containing 2 scales, have today been handed to Commander The Hon. L. J. D. Lambert, RN for transmission to the Mediterranean.14
On the same day, the Admiralty signalled to Limpus in Malta: ‘An officer carrying secret charts is proceeding from Toulon for Malta either on the 22nd or 23rd by a collier or by a French destroyer. The charts should be despatched to Admiral Carden as soon as possible, and as they are urgently required a special vessel should be sent if necessary.’15 Jackson noted: ‘The promptness with which these charts have been prepared is very creditable to those concerned.’16 These charts were used for the preliminary landings at Sedd-el-Bahr and Kum Kale and the Navy’s big attempt to force the Narrows on 18 March, and continued in use after this date.
The failure of the purely naval operations in February and March led to the overprinting with naval squaring of the 1:40,000 maps of the Gallipoli Peninsula, being prepared in Egypt, to aid artillery spotting, and the addition to these maps of the most up-to-date hydrographic data, turning them into an early form of chart-maps. Ernest Dowson, Director-General of the Egyptian Survey Department, initially had the 1:40,000 maps overprinted with the Army’s artillery square system for use once the force was ashore, but had to reprint them all with the Navy’s different system at the latter’s insistence, as the Navy was going to provide all the covering fire, at least until the force was well-established ashore. As the Mitchell report noted:
The maps supplied by the GSGS (squared and numbered) were admittedly imperfect and operations charts prepared by the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty from the Admiralty charts also squared and numbered with a view to Naval gunfire, were also based on imperfect work. Moreover, there was no common system of squaring or numbering of the two departments’ productions.17
Clearly two different fire-control systems could not be used, as this would only lead to a disastrous confusion.
The Mitchell Report appears to underestimate the early hydrographic work, as the charts of the area not only included Graves’s work, but also, as we have seen, surveys of the Narrows by Spratt and others in 1855, while the Gulf of Xeros had been surveyed by Copeland in 1833, and ‘The remainder from various documents in the Hydrographic Office’. The section of the Straits from Nagara to Gallipoli was surveyed in 1872 by Wharton and others, and Wharton did further work in 1880. Nevertheless, Mitchell’s assessment of the accuracy of the soundings must be taken seriously. The Greeks had planned to attack this very coast, but there is no record of Admiral Kerr in Athens being able to provide up-to-date hydrographic or beach intelligence. This does not mean that no information was passed. There were close relations between the Greek and Royal Navy personnel in the Dardanelles area and at Tenedos, British officers were serving on Greek naval craft, and there is no doubt that some information was acquired in this way.
The Suvla Bay area had been charted by earlier Admiralty hydrographers from the time of Spratt and Graves, but little specific hydrographic work was done in that area before the April landings or for the Suvla operation in August. It was feared that any obvious survey work would merely alert the Turks and induce them to strengthen their defences in this zone, as had happened at Helles. However, there were more general hydrographic data available for the Suvla Bay area, as Turkish maps had been captured, and since April there had been months of close observation by the Navy’s fire-support ships as well as aerial reconnaissance, air photography and landing parties.
Commander Douglas and his survey work
The Hydrographic Department fully recognised the inadequacy of the existing maps and charts and, when it was learned that active operations were in prospect, Commander Henry Douglas, Superintendent of Charts at the Admiralty, was appointed Surveying Officer on the staff of the Vice-Admiral commanding the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron (at first Carden, then de Robeck) to try to ‘rectify matters on the spot’. Douglas arrived at the Dardanelles on 24 February, and the only material he had to work with were proofs of the new Naval operations charts (X93–X95), the GSGS one-inch and 1:250,000 maps, and knowledge of the extent to which the surveys of Graves in 1840 could be considered accurate. In fact Graves’ surveys formed a sound basis of all new work in 1915, being found to be ‘most accurate as regards scale and bearing’. Douglas did a great deal of survey work before the Army’s landings of 25 April and later during the subsequent operations. He carried out beach surveys prior to the landings,18 and also some survey work in connection with fleet gunnery, notably to assist Queen Elizabeth to fire ‘indirect’ across the Peninsula.
As land reconnaissance was impossible before the April landings, the selected landing places at Helles, Anzac and Kum Kale had to be examined as closely as possible from the sea. Much data had to be acquired: charts had to be checked, shoal water carefully sounded, and anchorages organised for the many transport ships involved. In addition, to acquire as much general intelligence as possible, the Navy and RNAS had to keep the whole Peninsula under close surveillance, and Turkish defensive work had to be disrupted by naval bombardment.19
Douglas’s log for the period before the landings, which also recorded the weather and sea conditions, shows the variety of work done by him, including hydrographic survey:20
5–6 March
Queen Elizabeth bombarding by indirect fire
17 March
Boat work – surveying at Mudros
25 March
Laying buoys for firing
26 March
Surveying coast in Grampus off the Gallipoli beaches21
29 March
Surveying – no location given [possibly of Suvla Point to Bulair22]
30 March
Anchored at Imbros after surveying
31 March
Surveying and sketching; Mudros at dusk
1 April
Surveying Gulf of Adramyti
13 April
To Tenedos in Dartmouth with General Hunter-Weston etc
14 April
Examining coast; then to Mudros
15 April
Admiral and General over in Triumph to bombard
18 April
Over in Dublin with General Hunter-Weston and other officers to view Peninsula, returning to Mudros
This may, however, under-record the survey work; some was certainly done before 5–6 March to enable Queen Elizabeth to start her indirect firing.
As we have seen, various panoramic sketches of the possible landing places were drawn from the sea. The Navy’s reconnaissance sketches took the form of a set of drawn panoramas which were soon lithographed on tough linen-backed paper by the GHQ Printing Section. There were at least six of these:
• General View of West Coast of Gallipoli Peninsula south of Gaba Tepe (S.S.E. 2 miles); this indicated various landmarks, ‘trenches, precipitous cliffs, Blockhouse, battery behind ridge, Achi Baba’, etc. On the same sheet was also an oblique, contoured sketch-map, probably the result of air reconnaissance and possibly sketched from an oblique air photo: Rough sketch showing General Idea of the Topography from Gaba Tepe southwards to C. Helles, Gallipoli Peninsula. This indicated ‘Good sandy beach, steep cliffy coastline, Mal Tepe (conspicuous), Achi Baba’, etc.
• Sketch No.1 showing general view from proposed position of covering ship [Gaba Tepe to entrance to valley (Chana Orasi)]. See also Sketch No.2.
• Sketch No.2. View looking into valley of Chana Orasi (bearing SbE 1’ from shore).
• Sketch No.3. View showing position WNW of Cape Tekeh to cover Karethia Plain.
• Sketch No.4. View showing suggested landing places at C. Helles and position of Covering ship.
• Sketch No.5. View showing position for covering ship and landing places [Helles].
These assault panoramas are evidence of the considerable thought, preparation and cooperation which were put by the Army and Navy into the brief, intense period before the landings. Butler, of the RNAS, was also taking oblique and near-vertical air photos in considerable numbers during April.
Douglas �
��rendered most valuable services in connection with the reconnaissance of landing places in the Gallipoli Peninsula prior to the landing’,23 and may have been responsible for some, if not all, of the panoramic drawings listed above. On 3 March Irresistible put out a surveying party in boats, to examine and buoy the approaches to Camber Beach at Sedd-el-Bahr, which had previously been avoided owing to the presence of a reef. On the beach the party found a battery of destroyed field guns.24 Landings took place the next day, but little success was achieved. Demolition, survey (including survey of potential airfield sites) and beach parties were landed from Inflexible and Ocean under Lt Commander Giffard. A Royal Marine covering force (one company) tried to move forward to a line extending for a mile and a half from Morto Bay to the ‘fountain’ north of Tekke Burnu (the westernmost tip of the Peninsula), which it intended to hold for three hours while the demolition and survey parties did their work, but as Turkish fire prevented the covering force from advancing, the parties pulled out.25
Some ten days after the 25 April landings, in conjunction with Lieutenant T C Nicholas, Hamilton’s Maps Officer, Douglas produced a ‘Plan of SW end of Gallipoli Peninsula’ showing the Turkish defences at Helles as they existed on the morning of assault. This was printed in colour by the Survey Department, Egypt,26 and later appeared, in slightly modified form, in the Military Operations Official History.27 It included a panorama drawing of the Helles sector, drawn by Douglas.
Indirect fire surveys for battleships and monitors engaging land targets
Douglas also executed surveys to assist indirect fire on enemy forts and batteries, both before the landings and during the subsequent operations. This important work, which he further developed later off the Flanders coast, also included surveys for the indirect fire of monitors. On 5 March 1915 the Navy planned to use a cairn on the summit of Haji Monorlo Dagh as an aiming point for Queen Elizabeth, laying the fire of her 15-inch guns over the Peninsula.28 Douglas undertook survey work for Queen Elizabeth’s indirect fire bombardment of the forts guarding the Narrows at Chanak and Kilid Bahr. This involved extending the triangulation across the Peninsula between 26 March and 3 April by taking sextant angles from points offshore.
Grasping Gallipoli Page 32