The Loss of HMS Goliath at Gallipoli

On 25th April 1915 Allied forces stormed ashore on the beaches of Gallipoli in an attempt to force Germany's ally, Turkey out of the war and open up a supply route to Russia. It was the start of a disastrous campaign, subsequently to be cited as ‘an example of how not to carry out a military operation’.

Within days the campaign was in trouble. The main objective on the first day, the strategic hill Achi Baba, approximately five miles from the main landings, could not be reached due to a determined and totally unexpected Turkish resistance in which German military advisers played a part. By the second week in May Allied troops had advanced no more than about three miles, with the front line stretching across the peninsula from the Aegean Sea to the Dardanelles. Achi Baba lay two miles further on, looming over the battlefield and defended so strongly that it was never taken. Most of the line was held by British and Anzac forces with the French on the right flank beside the Dardanelles.

To get this far had been costly. The first Battle of Krithia on 28th April (so called after the Turkish village of that name) resulted in almost 3,000 casualties out of the 14,000 Allied troops engaged and achieved very little. The second Battle of Krithia which commenced on 6th May lasted three days and cost the Allies over 6,000 casualties for a gain of only 600 yards.

The fighting, for the most part, involved hundreds of men charging en masse into enemy machine gun and rifle fire, with artillery fire adding to the carnage. The Australians were adept at these "gung-ho" charges and their wild abandon coupled with reckless bravery achieved some spectacular local advances but not enough to break through the stubborn Turkish defence. The Turks, for their part, understood this kind of fighting and engaged in it themselves.

The French, on the other hand, seemed to be reluctant to sacrifice men unnecessarily in these wild charges which a French general once described as ‘magnificent, but not war’. It was rumoured that the French were starting to have doubts about the Gallipoli campaign and thought that the troops involved would have been better employed back on the Western Front, throwing the hated Hun out of France and Belgium. If these rumours were true, then future events on the Gallipoli Peninsula were to prove that the French were indeed right.

In any case, reports that the Turks appeared to be exerting more than usual pressure on the French were to cause enough concern to the British that every night they positioned two battleships in the Dardanelles whose guns would help to repulse any Turkish attack on the French flank. It is significant that it was not thought necessary to place any battleships in the Aegean sea on the left flank of the line which at that time was held by British and Australian troops.

Sir Ian Hamilton, the general in charge of the campaign, seemed to despair of the whole situation when on 8th May he wrote to Lord Kitchener

"The result of the operation has been a failure, as my objective remains unachieved. The fortifications and their machine-guns were too scientific and too strongly held to be rushed, although I had every available man in today. Our troops have done all that flesh and blood can do against semi-permanent works and they are not able to carry them, More and more munitions will be needed to do so. I fear that this is a very unpalatable conclusion, but I can see no way out of it".

The placing of the battleships on the French flank was to result in the age-old story of David and Goliath being enacted once again a story of how a small and seemingly weak opponent overcame a much larger and stronger one. This time the part of David would be played by a small Turkish destroyer MUVANET-I-MILET, while Goliath would be a 13,000 ton British battleship, appropriately named GOLIATH.

The two battleships, anchored nightly in the Dardanelles, were seen as prime targets by the Turks and plans were soon put in hand to attack and sink one, if not both, of them. At this time the Turkish Navy was, to a certain extent, under the influence of German naval officers and it was one of these, Kapitanleutnant Rudolph Firle who planned to carry out the attack using the destroyer MUVANET-I-MILET which was originally built for the German Navy but sold to Turkey in 1910.

After carrying out some preliminary reconnaissance, Firle embarked on MUVANET-I-MILET on the evening of 12th May together with two other German officers, Oberleutnant Andreae and Leutnant Sebeling as well as several German key ratings. The destroyer, with a mainly Turkish crew and commanded by Lieut. Commander Effendi, had been specially prepared for the task; funnels cowled to prevent sparks, boats removed and only half the normal supplies of stores, coal etc. loaded, to reduce draught, a necessary precaution in view of the many minefields along the Dardanelles. There were four torpedoes on board, three in the tubes and one spare on deck.

On the night of 12th -13th May the two battleships assigned for duty off the French flank were H.M.S. GOLIATH and H.M.S. CORNWALLIS, both at anchor, with five destroyers for protection all of which remained under way. The night was calm and dark with fog spreading across the Dardanelles about midnight and a strong current flowing southwards down the straits.

After anchoring for some hours in a small bay about seven miles north of the battleships, MUVANET-I-MILET weighed anchor at 12.45 a.m. and headed south. By keeping close to the land Firle escaped detection by the British destroyers BEAGLE and BULLDOG which passed less than half a mile offshore but failed to see the Turkish vessel due to fog and the dark background.

At 1.10 a.m. the two battleships came into view, occasionally scanning the shore with their searchlights and firing odd shots at the Turkish positions whereupon Firle ordered full speed ahead and headed for the nearest one which happened to be GOLIATH. Despite being challenged three times in morse code by signal lamps, MUVANET -I-MILET held her course and released three torpedoes which struck GOLIATH with such devastating effect that she blew up and capsized almost immediately in a thick cloud of black smoke.

GOLIATH, commanded by Capt. T. L. Shelford, had a complement of 750 out of which only about 180 survived. Capt. Shelford was not among the survivors. Those below decks at the time had little or no chance of survival while many of those who did manage to escape from the ship were swept away by the fast current and drowned. It was the greatest single disaster suffered by the Royal Navy during the whole campaign and battleships were never again to be anchored at night off Gallipoli.

After sinking GOLIATH the MUVANET-I-MILET escaped up the Dardanelles and made a triumphant entry into the Bosphorus on the morning of 14th May. Firle was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class, also the Austrian Iron Cross and the highest Turkish war decoration, the Order of Privilege while his officers received the Iron Cross 2nd Class. The Sultan of Turkey presented engraved gold watches to all of the officers and men involved.

The sinking of H.M.S. GOLIATH left hundreds of families mourning for their loved ones - like William and Ellen O'Flaherty of 22, Evergreen Street, Cork, whose son John was lost. As an Engine Room Artificer in the Royal Navy he would have been down in the engine room if on duty at the time, otherwise he was probably below in the crews' quarters, perhaps asleep in his hammock.

If not killed by the explosions he would have had no chance of escape trapped below deck when GOLIATH suddenly capsized. Aged 27 John was the husband of Alice O'Flaherty, 12, Melbourne Road, Chatham, the town where GOLIATH was built. As he has no known grave he is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial. He was posthumously awarded the 1914-15 Star, War & Victory Medals, all named to 271498 J. J, O'FLAHERTY, E.R.A.3, R.N. and a bronze Memorial Plaque named to JOHN JOSEPH O'FLAHERTY.