1914/15 Trio To The RN, Wounded Gallipoli

1914/15 trio 145471 H COPPIN SPO RN

Henry Coppin a 21 year old gardener from Sirley Sussex enlisted into the Royal Navy in 1888 .In WW1 he served afloat aboard the MFA Chinkoa from August till November 1914 and aboard HMS Amethyst from January 1915 till January 1916 and was slightly wounded on the 13th of March 1915

Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign

HMS Amethyst took part in the covering operation for the minesweeping effort in the Dardanelles and during the action on 1 March and 4 March 1915 she exchanged fire with Turkish forts. On the evening of 4 March she took on board injured personnel of the landing party and discharged them the next day into Soudan and SS Braemar Castle. During the hours of darkness between 6 and 11 March she took part in operations in the Dardanelles against mines, and was frequently in action against field artillery, forts and searchlights. On 14 March at 04:10 she was hit by field artillery and lost 22 men killed. A further 38 men were wounded, of whom 4 later died.Amethyst retired to Tenedos for repairs. The Captain, Commander G. J. Todd, and Lieutenant James C. J. Soutter, Senior Lieutenant, were commended in the Naval Dispatch dated 17 March 1914 from Vice Admiral Carden

Gallipoli Landings
Landing at Cape Helles

On 24 April 1915 Amethyst and her sister-ship Sapphire embarked soldiers and landed them by trawler at Y beach on the northwest shore of the Gallipoli Peninsula in the early morning of 25 April. She supported the British troops ashore with gunfire until 27 April by bombarding enemy positions. By mid-morning on 27 April, with the situation on the beach described as "desperate", surviving troops were beginning to come back on board - Amethyst took on board over 250 officers and men, many of them wounded.

Over the following days, Amethyst continued to provide support to the operations on W, Y and Z beaches. On 3 May she lay off Z beach and reported heavy gunfire on shore and large calibre enemy shells landing in the proximity of the British ships. On the night of 5 May, troops were taken from Z beach for redeployment to X and Y beaches.

Amethyst's last part in the landings occurred on 18 May when she proceeded up the Gulf of Adramyt in the early hours, accompanied by destroyers, arriving at Asia Bay just after 05:00. She sent an armed party away in boats to investigate the possibility of removing enemy lighters, but they returned 20 minutes later reporting that a sandbar prevented them from being moved. Two enemy oil tanks were demolished by gunfire, and at 06:45 an enemy field gun battery opened fire. Amethyst replied, silencing the guns, but was hit with the loss of 1 rating killed and 4 wounded.

Mediterranean

After conducting patrols from Brindisi during June and July 1915, Amethyst went into dry dock for a refit from 28 July until 17 August. She returned to Brindisi on 15 September and was present there on 27 September when the Italian battleship Benedetto Brin exploded at the buoys in the outer harbour. Amethyst's boats assisted in rescuing the survivors.

For much of the autumn of 1915, Amethyst stayed in port and acted a temporary depot ship for British submarines passing through on patrol. On 19 November, Amethyst headed towards Malta and thence to Gibraltar, arriving on 27 November. On 1 December she set out for Portsmouth, and then on 11 December for Barrow-in-Furness where she moored up in Devonshire Dock.


Full Service papers available on - line

Medals mounted as originally worn and in VF condition

Code: 51105