Hill 60 (tur. Kaiajik Aghala) is a place near which, during the attack of Turkish positions, a combat detachment of 1/5 battalion of the Norfolk regiment of the British army mysteriously disappeared.
The advancing British were opposed by units of the 36th Turkish Division under the command of Major Munib-Bey. After several days of intense fighting, on August 12, 1915, Lieutenant General Hamilton sent one of the battalion 1/5 units to occupy Hill 60.
According to eyewitnesses, 267 people, who were led into battle by Colonel Boshem and Captain Beck, entered a cloud of fog while advancing through the ravine. However, when the fog soon cleared, no living Norfolk or their bodies were found on the ground.
Here is how Hamilton described the ensuing events in a report to the Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener:
“The battalion of the 1 / 5th Norfolk Regiment was on the right flank and at some point felt less resistance (from the enemy) than that which the rest of the brigade faced. Against the retreating enemy forces, Colonel Sir H. Boshem - a brave, confident officer - continued the onslaught, dragging the best part of the battalion with him. The battle intensified, and the terrain became more wooded and broken. By this stage of the battle, many of the fighters were wounded or driven to exhaustion by thirst. These returned to camp during the night. But the colonel with sixteen officers and 250 men continued the pursuit, pushing back the enemy … None of them were seen or heard again. They went deeper into the forest and ceased to be seen and heard. None of them returned."
Ever since the disappearance of Sandringham Company of 1/5 Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment, this story had a mystical connotation. Sir Ian Hamilton noted the strangeness in the very fact of the loss of an entire unit on the battlefield in broad daylight.
Since 1915, a unit of the Norfolk Regiment has been reported missing. The British government made efforts to clarify his future fate, including asking for help in this matter from the Turkish authorities. But the bodies of British soldiers were discovered after the end of the war, in 1918. On September 23, 1919, an officer in charge of burial issues reported:
“We found a Norfolk battalion 'one shot five' - a total of 180 bodies: 122 Norfolk, several Ghent and Suffolk with Cheshire from the battalion" two shot four. " We were only able to identify the corpses of Privates Barnaby and Cotter. The bodies were scattered over an area of about a square mile, at least 800 yards beyond the leading edge of the Turks. Many of them were undoubtedly killed on the farm, as the local Turkish owner of the site told us that when he returned the farm was littered with the decomposing bodies of British soldiers, which he dumped into a small ravine. That is, the initial assumption is confirmed that they did not go deep into the enemy's defense, but were destroyed one after another on the battlefield, with the exception of those who got to the farm.
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In 1967, materials collected in 1917-1918 by a special commission were declassified, which, at the direction of the British government, investigated the reasons for the defeat in the Dardanelles operation - including the report on the bodies of 122 Norfolk men found.
It would seem that the secret has been solved, but in the report of the commission (The Final Report of the Dardanelles Commission) there were references to a strange fog, which on August 21, 1915, blinded artillery observers in the Suvla Bay area:
“Due to some quirk of nature, Suvla Bay and Plain were shrouded in a strange fog on August 21, in the afternoon. This was a complete setback for us, as we hoped that the enemy's arrows would be blinded by the sun, which was declining, and the Turkish trenches would be clearly visible to us in its evening rays with exceptional clarity. It turned out that we could hardly distinguish the orders of the enemy on that day, while the western targets were especially clearly visible in bright light."
At the same time, the testimony of veterans from the New Zealand unit, which was on the front line near Hill 60 during the attack on August 12, 1915, was published:
“The day was coming up, a clear, cloudless, in general, a beautiful Mediterranean day, which was to be expected. However, there was one exception: there were 6 or 8 clouds in the air in the form of "round loaves of bread." All of these similarly shaped clouds were directly above "height 60". It was noticed that, despite a light wind blowing from the south at a speed of 5-6 miles per hour, neither the location of the clouds nor their shape changed.
From our vantage point 500 feet away, we saw them hanging at an elevation of 60 degrees. On the ground, just below this group of clouds, there was another motionless cloud of the same shape. It measured about 800 feet in length, 200 in height, and 200 in width. This cloud was perfectly dense and appeared to be an almost solid structure. It was located at a distance of 14 to 18 chains (280-360 meters) from the battlefield, in the territory occupied by the British.
Twenty-two of the 3rd Squad of 1st NEZ Field Company and I watched the whole thing from trenches 2,500 yards southwest of the cloud closest to the ground. Our vantage point was about 300 feet above "Height 60"; later we remembered that this cloud stretched out over a dry river or a washed-out road, and we perfectly saw its sides and edges. She was, like all the other clouds, light gray.
Then we saw a British regiment (the first fraction of the 4th battalion of the Norfolk regiment) of several hundred men, who entered this dry bed or washed-out road and headed towards "Hill 60" to reinforce the detachment at this height. They approached the place where the cloud was, and without hesitation entered directly into it, but not one of them appeared at height 60 and did not fight. About an hour after the last groups of soldiers disappeared into the cloud, she easily left the earth and, as any fog or cloud does, slowly rose up and gathered the rest, similar to her clouds, mentioned at the beginning of the story.
Having examined them carefully again, we realized that they are like "peas in a pod". Throughout the entire event, the clouds hung in the same place, but as soon as the "earthly" cloud rose to their level, they all set off in a northern direction, towards Bulgaria, and after three quarters of an hour they were lost from sight.
The regiment mentioned here was declared “missing” or “destroyed”, and since the defeat of Turkey in 1918, the first thing Britain has demanded is the return of its regiment. Turkey replied that she never took this regiment prisoner, did not engage in battle with it, and did not even suspect of its existence. British regiment 1914-1918 numbered from 800 to 4000 people. Those who watched what was happening testify that the Turks did not take this regiment prisoner and did not contact it.
We, the undersigned, although we are making this statement belatedly because 50 years have passed since that event, we declare that the above incident is credible."
There are different versions trying to explain the anomalous event. Someone talks about time travel and other worlds. Ufologists believe that the Norfolk were abducted by an alien ship and subsequently thrown down. This is indicated not only by the area on which the bodies suddenly appeared, but also by the broken bones of the corpses, which are mentioned in the reports of the pathologists. An unambiguous point in the mystery of the missing shelf has not been set to this day.