John William Dallison

John William Dallison enlisted in October 1914. The battalion spent the winter of 1914 and Spring of 1915 in training. On 1st July 1915 they embarked for Gallipoli and by the end of the month, they had tasted trench warfare for the first time at Helles. On 6th August 1915, they took part in the landings at Suvla Bay, which should have seen a rapid movement inland to take on the Turk's. Instead of this they were attached to Division and told to link with the ANZAC troops and dig in. Three days were then lost as the enemy grew stronger. Eventually on 9th August the attack began and at 4.45 am, orders were given to move forward. At first things went well and the battalion moved 1000 yards forward before encountering heavy fire and suffering many casualties. Men from the battalion got to within yards of Hetman Chair but were held up and lacked the strength to attack further. The scrub caught fire making the situation even graver. By 8 am most of the officers had become casualties but despite this the men held on until 3 pm, when the Turk's counter attacked and drove a wedge between 'A' and 'B companies. The C.O. Lt. Colonel Bosanquet saw the problem and came forward with every man he could muster, runners, servants, signallers and even cooks. This eased the situation but an order was given to move back 400 yards to a more tenable position. The cost had been high with 7 officers dead, 11 wounded and 1 missing. Around 300 other ranks survived this first day out of some 800. The battalion had 106 men killed in their first battle and John William was one of these. He has no know grave and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial Gallipoli. John Morse

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