It was a very early start for our very special day. Peter had arranged for us to travel to the island of Gokceada (formerly Imbros) to see where Grandad was based from mid-December 1915 to the end of May 1916.
The ferry trip takes a couple of hours.There is a volcano in the centre of Imbros.Today, Kephalos Bay is absolutely full of windsurfers – mostly from Bulgaria, apparently!First stop was the site of the cemetery. This composite photo was taken by Bernie Freyberg.
These are pictures Grandad took of adjacent graves. It’s clearly the same location but they aren’t in the image above.
This photo looks out along the hook of the island. Kephalos Bay is on the left, with the salt lake on the right. The 2 Wing aerodrome isn’t marked very accurately – the buildings and centre of the field are directly under the arrow marked SE. 3 Wing aerodrome is near the tip of the hook.
Today it’s a scramble across farmer’s fields to get to that little hill, which is the best viewpoint to see the airfield.
Here’s the airfield in 1915… … and the same view in 2023. The peninsula is just visible on the skyline, and it’s very sobering to think that they had to fly across all that water and back again on every flight!There were no logbooks available when Grandad arrived, so for a month or so he recorded his flights on loose paper sheets that were later copied into his official notebook. This is an example. I apologise for his horrible cramped writing!RNAS crew studying a bomb fragment in 1916…… and us in 2023. Photo courtesy Kim Smith.
It was fascinating to get the feel of the airfield, and see the local geography that would have affected the local wind and weather. At the end of May Grandad was ordered to join a small detachment to attack the Bulgarians occupying Macedonia in Eastern Greece. They would be based on the island of Thasos, 90 miles away.
This is the actual map Grandad used for the Imbros – Thasos flight. The only information he had about the landing field was the little red dot. The flight took an hour and a half and, since the two pilots ahead of him both crashed on landing, he was the first pilot to successfully land on Thasos!This is the view of Samothrace from Kalekoy on Imbros. Thasos is out of sight below the horizon…
There was lots more to see on Imbros, and it was a wonderful day out, but this post is quite long enough already.
Imbros and Samothrace at sunset.
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It looks as if most if not all of the graves in your grandfather’s photos were transferred to the Lancashire Landing Cemetery on the Gallipoli peninsula.
I’ve not done the research to see where they were. We saw some RNAS names on memorials and gravestones but I didn’t spot those two. Presumably they were both killed in the same event, since the dates are identical, but again, I’ve never followed it up.
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It looks as if most if not all of the graves in your grandfather’s photos were transferred to the Lancashire Landing Cemetery on the Gallipoli peninsula.
I’ve not done the research to see where they were. We saw some RNAS names on memorials and gravestones but I didn’t spot those two. Presumably they were both killed in the same event, since the dates are identical, but again, I’ve never followed it up.
Yes, all the British and Dominion servicemen were reinterred at Lancashire Landing Cemetery. Happy to share pics of the RNAS men in that cemetery.
David, it’s great that a Bremner got to pay a return visit, and very pleased to have played a small part in it!
Oh, thank you! We’ll have to do another tour to try and pick them up next time!