Gully Beach Aug 6th 1915: Marched up mule track and took over trenches from Royal Fusiliers, heavy gun fire up to 1pm, bombardment from 2.15pm until 3.50pm. Attack launched, first line advanced at proper time, attack did get home, majority of first line killed or wounded. Captain B.S. Parker led attack of second line, killed soon after leaving his trenches, attack failed.

Failure of attack attributed to the number of of machine guns in front and flanks of position, these guns had not been knocked out in the bombardment, and as soon as attack was launched opened very heavy fire.

Strength of Battalion going into action - Officers 27 Other Ranks 846.

Casualties                     Officers             Other Ranks

Killed                               3                          31
Wounded                         2                         183
Missing                          16                         212
Sick                                 1                          13

                                      22          :             439

ROYAL HAMPSHIRE REGIMENT - 1914-1918 by C.T. Atkinson. Naval and Military Press

The assaulting troops were in position by 8 a.m. (August 6th) but had to wait for six hours before the bombardment started. As again the artillery support was utterly inadequate: General Davies, who had just arrived from France to take over the Eighth Corps1 from General Hunter-West on, invalided, was quite horrified to see how very far it fell short of the Western Front standard, low as that was in 1915, and the volume and vigour of the Turkish reply showed that they were unpleasantly ready for the attack and augured ill for its chances. After an hour’s deliberate bombardment by a handful of heavy guns, the field guns took up the tale and for 30 minutes plastered the objective as vigorously as their scanty ammunition would allow: then at 3.50 p.m. the infantry went forward with the utmost dash and gallantry, the Hampshire attacking in four waves. A low crest fifty yards from our line was crossed almost without loss but then machine-guns opened up on all sides and mowed the attackers down wholesale before many of them had got any way across No Man’s Land, some guns across the Krithia Nullah on our right being particularly deadly. Our guns could do nothing to subdue their fire and under it the attack soon withered away.

The Hampshire suffered terribly, above all in losing Captain Parker, who fell in leading the advance of the second line, and with him two other ‘originals’, Captain Day and Lt. Webb, both previously wounded but back at duty, and 2/Lt. Gawn, who had won the D.C.M. in Somaliland, while 2/Lt. C. Moor fell on the Turkish parapet, which a very few of the leading waves seem to have reached. The supports lost as heavily as the leaders but pressed forward with equal determination, and some men, among them Lt. Morris and some of Z Company’s second wave, entered the Turkish lines and established themselves in H.i2a, some apparently even reaching H.13. Too few to maintain their foothold, they were overcome by numbers, though Sergeant Sinsbury held on for some time to a sap with a few men and, when they were bombed out, he covered their retirement with great skill and resource.2 Rather more Worcestershire got in and held out till dark, while a fair number of Essex from Hampshire Cut established themselves in H.12 and eventually managed to retain a tiny corner, but within a few minutes the attack had come to a complete standstill, the unhit survivors lying out among the dead and wounded, pinned to the ground by the machine-guns and unable to move until darkness let them and the more slightly wounded crawl back. It had been the worst day in the whole story of Cape Helles.

Inadequate artillery support had once again led to a heavy sacrifice of lives to little purpose. Nothing had been gained locally and even if the Turks had been distracted from the main attack at Suvla, its unavailing gallantry had left the 88th Brigade a wreck, the Hampshire having lost eighteen officers and 224 other ranks killed and missing....

During the night any wounded who could be reached were brought in, and then the 86th Brigade relieved the 88th and the surviving Hampshires made their way back to Gully Beach, where they were warmly congratulated on their gallantry by General de Lisle and reorganized in two companies. Little rest could be given to the brigade: shattered as it was, it had on August 14th to take over the line again from the 86th. Things had gone wrong at Suvla, and though Sir Ian Hamilton had deliberately refrained from using the Twenty-Ninth Division in that attack because he had already asked so much of it and wished, if possible, to spare it, he had now to employ the ‘Old Guard’ of the M.E.F. in a last-minute effort to retrieve the situation.

On 25 November 1917, during World War I's African theatre, German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck crossed the Rovuma River from German East Africa into Portuguese Mozambique. They started going south. By the end of March 1918, British general Jacob van Deventer, whose troops were following von Lettow's troops in an attempt to encircle them,^[1] expected von Lettow to turn back into German East Africa. Von Lettow kept going south. British and Portuguese troops could not stand their ground to the German forces. The British Gold Coast Regiment withdrew their forces. At Ile, the defending Portuguese troops ran off after they spotted the Germans. They left behind a large amount of supplies, more than von Lettow could carry. Much of it was burned to prevent future use by the British or Portuguese.

Namacurra, also spelled Nhamacurra, was a town that had a newly established supply depot for British and Portuguese armies, which contained "vast warehouses stuffed full of arms and ammunition, food, wine, and whiskey". It was connected by railroad to the nearby port town of Quelimane, where the British feared the French would seize vessels and escape from Africa.

The battle started on July 1, 1918. It was the southernmost strike of Vorbeck's campaign. The Portuguese offered stiffer resistance than they had at Ile. Three Portuguese battalions, aided by two British King's African Rifle companies commanded by Colonel Eric Gore-Browne, fought against three German companies commanded by Captain Müller. By July 3, von Lettow had brought out his main force. The Portuguese units were steadily pushed back, until they were forced to retreat across the Namacurra River. One hundred European and African men drowned, including Gore-Browne. The fighting ended on the afternoon of July 3.

Von Lettow changed tactics again, retiring in echelon rather in a single column, with the aim of trapping some or all of Pamforce between two of his groups by attacking both flanks concurrently. This ploy did not work, but there were occasional collisions resulting in minor casualties. The British columns in the field now were Pamforce (1/2, 2/2 and 3/32 KAR under Giffard and known as Kartucol, and Rosecol, made up the Gold Coast Regiment and KARMI), Kartrecol (3 KAR), Shortcol, (KAR and the Rhodesian Native Regiment. This was commanded by Col Shorthose and known as ‘Soxcol’) and Grifcol (KARfrom Nyasaland). To these were added Fitzcol (KAR) and Mobforce, from Mozambique.

Von Lettow’s threat to the town of Quelimane was delayed when two companies of 2/3 KAR under Major E.A. Gore-Browne reinforced the Portuguese garrison. But on 3 July the enemy broke into the perimeter and 2/3 KAR withdrew across the River Nhamacurra, ninety yards wide and with a strong current. Many were drowned while others, including Gore-Browne, were shot while crossing. The total losses were: killed one officer, one BOR and sixteen AORs; wounded twenty-eight askari, three BORs and 174 askari. Von Lettow escaped with all the weapons and supplies he could carry.

Extract from the book - King's African Rifles: A History by Malcom Page