2nd Brigade AIF Attack at Krithia

For most Australians the name Krithia means next to nothing. The Landing, Lone Pine and the Nek – these are the actions that have burnt themselves on the popular consciousness of Gallipoli, encouraged by Peter Weir’s 1982 film Gallipoli which featured the charge of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek as its climactic finale.

Krithia is a small village near the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula where British troops landed on 25 April 1915. As on Anzac, the advance in this area gradually bogged down into trench warfare. On the evening of 8 May, the four battalions of the 2nd Brigade, AIF, approximately 2,900 strong, advanced over flat open ground against the Turkish trenches south of Krithia.

The attack failed and within a matter of an hour and a half 1,056 - 36 per cent - of that 2,900 had been killed or wounded. Most of the Australian dead at Krithia were never identified for burial and their names are on the Helles Memorial to the Missing and not at Lone Pine. By comparison with Anzac, relatively few Australians visit Helles or are aware of the tragedy of the 2nd Brigade on 8 May 1915.

The painting on this panel – "The Charge of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, 8 May 1915" – was executed by Charles Wheeler. It shows an incident in the advance when the brigade commander, Brigadier J W McCay, urged his men forward from a position about half way to the Turkish line known as the Tommies’ trench. With enemy bullets flying all around, McCay walked out to his advancing troops waving his periscope and yelling "Come on – Run!"