Many incredible, mysterious and even mystical events happened on the fronts of the First World War. But what happened in August 1915 during the campaign near Gallipoli (Turkey) defies any explanation at all. An entire company of soldiers mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
The Norfolk entered Gallipoli on July 29, 1915. The soldiers were ordered to establish control over the Dardanelles - a strategically important point, the strait connecting the Mediterranean and Black Seas. On August 10, sweating and cursing the scorching sun, the British landed in Sulwa Bay.
The place for the battle was chosen extremely unprofitable. Not far from the shore was a salt lake, which by that time had long since dried up and shone intolerably in the sun, blinding the soldiers. The trenches dug in the plain looked like a red-hot furnace, the searing wind clogging the eyes and nose with dust and sand.
But the worst were the hideous fat green flies that covered food and latrines in a solid carpet. In short, the heat and unsanitary conditions did their job - the soldiers began to have dysentery. Strong and handsome men turned into walking skeletons before our eyes. They simply did not have the strength to fight, and the Norfolk suffered loss after loss.
Corpses lay everywhere in great numbers. The hands and feet of the dead stuck out of the sand here and there, bringing fear and horror to the living. The morale of the troops fell, and an atmosphere of hopelessness reigned among the soldiers and the command. And only Commander-in-Chief Ian Hamilton did not succumb to general panic. He believed that the only chance to turn the tide of the campaign and achieve victory was to bring fresh forces into battle in the main direction. And so they did.
MYSTERIOUS THING …
Reinforcements arrived and Hamilton launched an offensive on 25 August. The battalion "one shot four" of the 163rd brigade, under the cover of powerful artillery fire, had to cover a distance of several kilometers. But the soldiers did not go even five hundred meters when it became obvious that their intention to cross the open space in daylight was impracticable. Enemy machine-gun fire pressed the battalion to the ground. On the right flank, the "one shot five" battalion was much more fortunate.
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Not encountering any serious resistance, he continued the offensive. But then the incredible happened.
Here is how Sir Hamilton described what had happened in a report to the Minister of War, Lord Kitchener: “In the course of the battle fought with honor by the 163rd Brigade, a truly mysterious thing happened … In the battle with a desperately resisting enemy, Colonel Sir G. Beauchamp, an experienced and well-proven officer, steadily moved forward at the head of his battalion.
The battle was hot and bloody, the ground was stained with blood, numerous wounded remained on the battlefield and only returned to their original positions at night. However, the colonel with 16 officers and 250 soldiers continued to press the enemy. They went deep into the forest, and they were no longer seen or heard. None of them were seen again, none of them came back. 267 people disappeared without a trace!"
And here is how the New Zealand infantrymen from the third platoon of the first infantry company commented on what they saw: “A cloud of very dense fog descended to the“height 60”and the soldiers entrenched there, despite the gusty wind. Then the soldiers of the Norfolk regiment marched there, sent to reinforce the units that were there.
One way or another, but all the witnesses of the incident unanimously confirmed that more than two hundred soldiers covered the cloud that descended on the road. And not one of them came out of it. About an hour later, the cloud rose smoothly and moved north. And with him, obviously, all 267 people. In any case, eyewitnesses to this mysterious event thought so. And what could they have to think if not a single soldier remained in the position.
STRANGE CLOUDS
And soon the command received a statement from the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) 4/165 sapper F. Reichart and 13/416 sapper R. Newnes. Here is what they wrote: -The day turned out to be clear, what can only be a summer day on the Mediterranean. The picture was somewhat disturbed only by 6 or 8 clouds in the form of a loaf of bread. All of them, being exactly the same, hovered over "height 60".
And, despite the breeze from the south, they did not change either their position or form. The same motionless, resting almost on the ground was a cloud similar in shape, but much larger in size. This cloud was very dense, and it was seen by 22 men of the third platoon of the first field company, including us from our trenches on the Rhododendron Spur, located slightly above "height 60".
Then this strange cloud straddled the dry stream bed and the road in the Kayadzhik-dere notch, and we could clearly see both the ends and the sides of this cloud lying on the ground. The Norfolk regiment of the British soon arrived, several hundred men marching along this deepened road in the valley of the stream. They approached this cloud and without hesitation continued on their way straight through it.
But not a single person came out of it. An hour later, the cloud slowly rose above the ground, joining other such clouds mentioned at the beginning of this report. Now they were all in a line and looked like peas in a pod. All this time, the group of clouds was in one place, but as soon as the strange cloud rose to their level, they all moved in a united column to the north, towards Bulgaria, and after about 45 minutes disappeared from view. We, the undersigned, declare that the incident described above is true from the first to the last word."
MISSING
In the official report of the British campaign in the Dardanelles, they wrote: “The regiment was engulfed in a fog of unknown origin. It reflected the sun's rays in such a way that it blinded the gunners-gunners, which made it impossible to provide fire support”.
Unit "one fraction of five" is officially listed as missing. But the members of the command, far from mysticism, insisted on their version of what had happened: in some clever way the enemy took the Norfolk prisoners. That is why numerous eyewitnesses to the incident did not hear any shots or sounds of a struggle.
Is it any wonder that immediately after the Turkish surrender in 1918, Britain demanded the return of captured soldiers. However, the Turks swore and swore that no one was taken prisoner in the area and that there were no Norfolk in their camps. The official statement of the Turkish command on this matter said: “During the Gallipoli operation, the Turkish side did not carry out any military operations in the Kayadzhik-dere hollow. And also did not capture British soldiers during all hostilities near Sulva Bay."
The British, of course, did not believe the former enemy, and in 1918, as victors, set out to explore the Gallipoli Peninsula.
On the very first day, soldiers of the occupation forces, bypassing the battlefield, found shoulder straps, boots and several badges of the Royal Norfolk regiment. On the second day, they were more fortunate - in a neighboring village they found a peasant who said that in August 1915 he had to take out many bodies of English soldiers from his land. “The bodies were scattered over an area of approximately two and a half square kilometers. They were all terribly mutilated, the peasant explained, as if someone had thrown them from a great height. I got scared of evil spirits and dragged all the bodies into a small ravine."
Examination of the first two bodies recovered from the shallow mountain gorge showed that they were Norfolk Battalion privates Barnaby and Carter. Immediately after this, the British command hastened to announce that the Norfolk battalion "one shot five" had been found.
But the reasons for the death of the soldiers are unknown to this day. What kind of cloud was it? Why did all 267 people who got into it die overnight? Some military historians believe it was a cloud of some kind of nerve gas. During the First World War, many countries tested them in large numbers.
And how can one explain the fact that the bodies of the dead soldiers were mutilated as if they had been thrown from a great height? Who did it: tornado, tsunami, dust whirlwind, UFO? There are still many questions, but there are no answers.
Max Maslin