Our final speaker, before the Christmas break, is Tom Barclay. Tom is, I'm sure, well known to many of you and has certainly assisted many of our members in their local and family history researches.
Tom is the Local History Librarian at the Carnegie Library in Ayr and has an extensive knowledge of the history of our county.
Tomorrow night (Tuesday 15 December 2015) he will be speaking of the experiences of Ayrshire troops during the Gallipoli Campaign of World War 1.
British, Australian, New Zealand and French troops had landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 2015. One of the aims of the campaign was to knock the Turkish Ottoman Empire out of the
war, open up Black Sea supply routes to Russia and gain access
to Serbia along the River Danube.
Scottish troops of the 52nd Lowland Division were heavily involved in attacking the Turkish defences at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
These included the 4th and 5th Territorial battalions of the Royal Scots Fusiliers (Ayrshire’s county regiment).
Later in the campaign reinforcements for the 52nd Division included men of the Ayrshire Yeomanry, Ayrshire's Territorial
cavalry unit. They left their horses behind and served as infantrymen.
Most of Ayrshire's WW1 memorials carry the names of local lads who fell or died of wounds while serving in Gallipoli.
We look forward to hearing Tom giving us further information on this controversial action of the Great War
Wish I could come and listen. My ancestor Thomas Ballantyne was one of those young men from Ayr who served in Gallipoli. Read his story here http://www.discoveringmyfamily.net/blog-whats-new/we-almost-forgot-tom-ballantyne-ww1-hero
ReplyDeleteFiona
DeleteThank you so much for sharing the story of Thomas Ballantyne with us. I found it most informative.
I so wish these presentations were recorded and shared with us ex-pats and otger interested parties worldwide...
ReplyDeleteBill McClung,
Chicago, US.
Thanks for your suggestion, Bill. We would love to be able to share our talks with a worldwide audience. We have neither the equipment necessary to make a good quality video recording nor anyone with the expertise to produce such a recording. And if those are not obstacles enough, many of our speakers are very reluctant to give permission for their talks to be recorded.
DeleteIf you can offer any solutions to these challenges, we would be glad to hear from you.