On this day in 1915, probably in response to appeals put out by Kittie and by Gertrude Bell at the Red Cross in London, a Captain Frank J. Martin of the Royal Worcestershire Regiment appeared at the office of a solicitor in Bristol, stated that he had for some time been attached to the First Battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (George Calderon’s battalion), and made this deposition:
[Captain Martin] was sent to the Dardanelles, and landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula shortly after the first landing by British troops had been effected, and he was then a First Lieutenant and the Senior Subaltern in B Company of the First K.O.S.Bs.
The battalion went into action about Mid-day on the 4th June, when they attacked the Turkish trenches, and in that attack Captain Martin believes that every Officer in B Company, except himself, was killed.
Five sets of trenches were captured in this attack, but the front trench was lost again, and was not again taken and held till a few days later.
Owing to the confusion which occurred in the attack, and to the fact that another Company was also mixed up with B Company, and that the trenches had to be held throughout the rest of the day and night, it was not brought to Captain Martin’s knowledge that Lieutenant Calderon, who was a Lieutenant in B Company of the First K.O.S.Bs, was not there, and it was commonly said that Lieutenant Calderon, Lieutenant Harley and another Officer were amongst the fallen, and that the Captain [Grogan] of B Company had been blown to pieces by a shell.
Captain Martin remained with the First Battalion of the K.O.S.Bs till early in July, when he was invalided home, and he states that he did not hear when the front trench was re-taken, that the body of Lieutenant Calderon was found.
Captain Martin’s private opinion is that Lieutenant Calderon was killed outright, and that probably his body was buried, together with many others by a shell, or by the enemy, or even by British troops.
Under the words ‘by a shell’ in the last paragraph, Kittie wrote: ‘No high explosive used that day told to me by Capt Paterson Adjutant. Ground never again gone over by Turks.’ Alas, she was clutching at straws. The last five words of Martin’s deposition suggest to me that he knew more than he was saying. For what I believe to be the terrible truth, see page 414 of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius.
Lieutenant Jack Harley was, like George, an alumnus of Trinity College Oxford, although ten years younger than him. He was indeed killed in the same battle.
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23 August 1915
On this day in 1915, probably in response to appeals put out by Kittie and by Gertrude Bell at the Red Cross in London, a Captain Frank J. Martin of the Royal Worcestershire Regiment appeared at the office of a solicitor in Bristol, stated that he had for some time been attached to the First Battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (George Calderon’s battalion), and made this deposition:
Under the words ‘by a shell’ in the last paragraph, Kittie wrote: ‘No high explosive used that day told to me by Capt Paterson Adjutant. Ground never again gone over by Turks.’ Alas, she was clutching at straws. The last five words of Martin’s deposition suggest to me that he knew more than he was saying. For what I believe to be the terrible truth, see page 414 of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius.
Lieutenant Jack Harley was, like George, an alumnus of Trinity College Oxford, although ten years younger than him. He was indeed killed in the same battle.
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