Steel lifeboat from HMT Ascot (A33) used in the landings at Gallipoli by 13 Battalion AIF

The first object encountered by a visitor to the Memorial’s First World War galleries is a grey steel lifeboat, its surface dulled by the hands of innumerable visitors keen to touch this precious artefact of the Gallipoli campaign. The lifeboat came from the troopship HMT Ascot, which carried men of the 13th Battalion ashore late in the afternoon of the landing on 25 April 1915. It was found abandoned on the beach after the war, its hull peppered with holes, the result of stray shots and shell-fire.

The Australians held little affection for the Ascot; for them, it was “this rotten tub … absolutely the dirtiest thing afloat”. The transport arrived off Anzac around 4.30 pm, and the men of the 13th transferred to the torpedo boat destroyer HMS Chelmer, which took them towards the cove with the Ascot’s lifeboats in tow. The men then clambered down into the lifeboats to be rowed the final distance to the beach. Once ashore, the battalion went straight into the front line to take up positions in Monash Valley, Quinn’s Post, and Pope’s Hill. The Ascot left Gallipoli a few days later, filled with wounded men. But it left behind three of its lifeboats, including No. 6, which was damaged either during the landing or shortly afterwards.

Having lain abandoned on the beach throughout the campaign, the boat was discovered by the Australian Historical Mission to Gallipoli in 1919. In late 1921 it was retrieved from the beach for transport to Australia. It seems it was cut in two to allow it to be manoeuvred along the steep coastal road built by the Grave Registration Unit. Re-joined but still showing grim reminders of the campaign, the lifeboat is now one of the treasures of the Memorial’s collection.