Dominic Sandbrook

And the men start jumping down from the ship onto the gangway, but they are being raked all the time with Turkish bullets.

So the first 200 men, only 21 of them reached the beach alive.

And there was a petty officer who was watching from the ship and he wrote in his diary, he said, one after another, the devoted fellows made the dash down the deadly gangways.

But to our horror, we saw them suddenly begin to flounder and fall in the water again.

They went down, never to reappear.

As the hailing bullets flicked the life out of the struggling men, we almost wept with impotent rage.

So they're leaping off.

They're incredibly bravely kind of running across this kind of improvised gangway, and they're all being shot down.

After about an hour, the shallows are absolutely choked with dead and drowning men.

The able seaman, William Williams, he's shot and killed.

And Unwin, who's been holding the gangway in place, kind of from not so well swept away by the tide, he basically collapses with exhaustion.

He has to be dragged back aboard the ship.

And at this point, the commanding officers on the river Clyde say, this has been a complete nightmare.

Let's just wait here.

Stop trying to get off the ship and wait for cover of darkness and then try to get ashore.

But, I mean, this is why you should never be too brave, Tom.

And I don't think this is an issue that we will ever have to face, frankly, but just so you know, don't be too courageous.

Because at this point, one of the infantry commanders, who's called Brigadier General Napier, says, no, no, we can still do this.

And he jumps down from the ship onto the gangway and he says, come on, men.

And somebody shouts at him, you can't possibly land.