ghty-seventh
Brigade, under the command of Brigadier General Marshall, was assigned
to this part of the field. It was to work its way as far as possible
inland and link up with the troops coming ashore at Beach W. At Beach
X the Turks were well prepared. They had constructed bomb-proof
shelters and trenches on the heights and were well led by German
officers.

Before the actual landing the supporting battleships, led by the
_Swiftsure_ and the _Implacable_, bombarded the Turkish positions for
almost an hour with their heaviest guns. The ground was thoroughly
swept by the great 12-inch and smaller guns of the warships. Finally,
just before the actual landing, the _Implacable_ steamed within 500
yards of the shore, dropped her anchor and smothered the near cliffs
and the foreshore with her fire.

Subsequent investigation proved that in this affair of Gallipoli, as
in Flanders and elsewhere, the British suffered from their lack of
foresight in the provision of proper shells. The battleships used
shrapnel, which, it was afterward discovered, did little damage to the
deep, protected trenches prepared by the Turks under the supervision
of the German officers. If the British had had instead the
high-explosive shells that were necessary for the work, the story of
the Gallipoli landings under the wing of the great fleet of
battleships might have made different reading.

After about a quarter of an hour's final bombardment by the
_Implacable_, two companies and a machine-gun section of the First
Royal Fusiliers were thrown ashore at Beach X. Under cover of the
battleships, the landing was safely accomplished and the Fusiliers
advanced almost 1,000 yards without much opposition. Hill 114 on their
right, where the Turks proved to be firmly intrenched, then proved a
serious obstacle to the advance. While the Royal Fusiliers were
considering the best method of attacking this position, a Turkish
battery, in position near the town of Krithia, opened fire and tore
holes in the left wing of the British force. At the same time they
were heavily counterattacked by a Turkish force coming from the east.
Gradually the Royal Fusiliers were compelled to give ground. Two
battalions of the Eighty-seventh Division were sent ashore and with
these reenforcements the British again advanced, this time clearing
Hill 114 of the enemy. There they joined hands with the First
Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and although all day long the
Turks t