WISBEY, HERBERT THOMAS
Rank: Petty Officer Stoker Service No. 2016T
Service: Royal Naval Reserve HMS NEWMARKET
Date of death 17 July 1917 Age 41

Herbert was the son of Samuel and Adelaide Wisbey and husband of Ellen Wisbey née Dyer, of C.W.E. Cottage, Regent St., Rowhedge, Colchester. Herbert was born 6 December 1875. The 1901 Census shows Herbert Wisbey aged 26 born East Donyland and still living at East Donyland working as a Shoemaker. Herbert and Ellen married 31 March 1902. By 1911 Ellen and Herbert have a 6 year old daughter and a 4 year old son, and Herbert is listed as a Ship Fireman.

Crew of Steam Yacht VENETIA. She was built 1905

Steam Yacht GWENDOLINE

He appears on the photograph of the steam yacht VENETIA above - but we do not know which of the crew is Herbert. We also know from a postcard that he was on the Steam Yacht GWENDOLINE at Rowhedge.

Herbert's Record Card is in the National Archives (BT 377/7/103864). He enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve 22 November 1904. Herbert served on the yacht VANESSA summer 1910, and then as a Fireman on GWENDOLINE from 26 September 1910 to 8 June 1914. 2 June 1914 he joined the Royal Navy.
27 Jan 1915 Herbert joined minesweeper NEWMARKET as a Leading Stoker, promoted to Petty Officer Stoker July 1916.

HMS NEWMARKET was a passenger cargo ship, built 1907 by Earle's Shipbuilding, Hull, 833 gross tons. Twin screw, triple expansion-engines. She was the final vessel of the four sisters CROMER, YARMOUTH, CLACTON, & NEWMARKET. These were owned by the Great Eastern Railway and served ports to the Continent. CLACTON and NEWMARKET were requisitioned by the Admiralty at the start of the WW1 and used as minesweepers.

In 1915 HMS NEWMARKET was used to support the Gallipoli campaign:

GALLIPOLI LANDINGS INVOLVING HMS NEWMARKET

At dawn, on 25 April 1915, the invading force landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The main forces to land at V Beach were conveyed in the RIVER CLYDE, a converted steam collier, and a fleet sweeper. The RIVER CLYDE transported 1 Munster Fusiliers; 2 Hampshire Regiment (less two companies); 1 Coy, 1 Royal Dublin Fusiliers; GHQ Signals Section; Field Coy Royal Engineers; and one platoon of the Anson Battalion, Royal Naval Division. It was planned to bridge the intervening water space with a motor hopper, the Argyle, supported if necessary by dumb lighters. With regard to the disembarkation of the troops, four sally ports had been cut in the RIVER CLYDE, two on each side at lower deck level, where the men would be waiting. The sally ports opened onto a gangway, three planks wide, which led forward to the bows where there was a hinged extension onto the Argyle which, in turn, had a brow, or gangway, of her own to connect with the shore. The Argyle was to be towed from a gantry on the port side of the RIVER CLYDE with a lighter inboard of the latter. A second lighter was to be towed from the starboard side of the RIVER CLYDE and others, plus some boats, from aft.

A covering force was to be landed ahead of the RIVER CLYDE contingent from two fast sweepers, the CLACTON and NEWMARKET (railway packets, ex-Great Eastern Railway). This covering force consisted of approximately 500 men, comprising: 1 Royal Dublin Fusiliers, commanded by Lt Col R.A. Rooth; one platoon of the Anson Battalion, RND; and a second platoon of the RND serving as a naval beach party. The covering force was to be disembarked in six tows of boats and were scheduled to land at 05h30, after half-an-hour's bombardment from Albion. The men from the RIVER CLYDE were to follow at 06h30. Along the 274 m of beach were well sited entrenchments and dense entanglements of barbed wire. The appreciation of the General Staffs stated that these defences could be demolished by the same bombardment from Albion that was to cope with the defences of W Beach.

The covering force did not precede the main contingent, as was intended, but landed almost simultaneously, due to the problems attached to navigating the RIVER CLYDE whilst towing the motor hopper Argyle, in addition to the various lighters and boats. From the outset, before the first troops could disembark, the plan seriously miscarried. The Argyle sheered to port and grounded broadside onto the beach. Thus, the distance between ship and shore was left un-bridged. At 06h00, after the cessation of the hour's barrage that was assumed would silence the Turkish defences of V and W Beaches, the RIVER CLYDE, her 2 000 men ready to run down the gangways and across the bridge of boats, was ordered forward. An officer aboard wrote confidently: '0622 hours. Ran smoothly ashore, no opposition. We shall land unopposed.' Indeed, the shelling had been followed by an uncanny silence. It was assumed that all the Turks were dead, according to plan. The assumption was mistaken. As was the case at W Beach, the Turks had retired during the barrage, and crept back to their trenches when it had ceased. These trenches contained three platoons (64 men) and one 37mm (pom pom) battery (the pom poms were to be mistaken for the four machine guns, which only arrived later). As the RIVER CLYDE's causeway of boats was linked to the shore they held their fire and waited for the troops to descend the gangway. As the first men descended from the ramp, the frightful enfilading fire from 274 m distance commenced. Alan Wykes provides the following graphic account:

'It was not only on the gangway that the men were mown down in dozens as they emerged, until the narrow descent was piled with the wounded and dead; those arriving in the cutters and row boats [i.e. those disembarked from the fleet sweepers] were simply killed en masse, helplessly, as they stood there. Their bodies tipped grotesquely over the sides, like mechanical acrobats, their boats, un-steered and powerless, drifted away from the shore and sank as they became pierced with bullet holes.

The few who got away found shelter beneath a ridge of ground below the castle walls; and in the madness of desperation the dead were flung from the gangway of the RIVER CLYDE so that more men could be poured out to wade ashore and be killed in their turn. It was if the men themselves had found the whole situation unbelievable, as if by storming ashore hour after hour they could change it, vanquish the defenders by sheer weight of numbers if nothing else ... But the defences were apparently impregnable. The machine guns mounted behind sandbags in the bows of the RIVER CLYDE found no mark. The entrenched Turks spat out their bullets at the faintest sign of movement. By 0930 hours, of 1 500 men who had attempted to land only 200 had reached cover. No spirit of conquest could overcome the fact that no more could be done.'