In September 1915 The Westmorland Gazette observed that the 6th Battalion of the Border Regiment was in action at the Dardanelles and this brought the war home to the people of Kendal more strongly than anything else that had yet occurred, writes DAVID SHACKLTON.

Seventy five men from Kendal were in 6th Border so a great many homes were affected. During the first 12 months of the war about 90 men from South Westmorland had died in service, but in August 1915, 30 more men from this region were killed in action at Gallipoli. This ill-fated campaign claimed the lives of 45 local men in total.

For the first time local papers printed lengthy casualty lists and group photographs of men killed or wounded began to appear.

The human cost and the collective shock can well be illustrated by considering the simple war memorial at Windermere Golf Club. It records the names of 16 of its members - all were officers who died in service during the war. Five have their final resting place on the Peninsula, all five being killed in action within the short space of 12 weeks.

Captain Thomas H W Cunliffe, 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, age 29. He was a Regular Army man who had served with his Regiment since 1905. In charge of a machine gun section, he was killed at Gurkha Bluff. He is the only one of the five to have a known grave, being buried in Lancashire Landing Cemetery. The others are remembered on the Helles Memorial. Thomas’s father was a solicitor at Ambleside, his home address was the Croft, Ambleside.

Captain Joseph Holt, 1st/6th Battalion Manchester Regiment, age 33. He was the eldest son of Sir Edward and Lady Holt of Prestwich. Sir Edward was a Manchester brewery owner, former Lord Mayor of Manchester and owner of Blackwell, the well-known Arts & Crafts house at Windermere.

Both men died on June 4,1915 during the third Battle of Krithia.

Lieutenant Alexander Nicol Milne, 1st/6th Battalion Manchester Regiment died on August 7 during a Turkish Army attack at the “Vineyard” The battalion war diary records…..

“Lieutenant Milne fired 4 shots from his revolver at the Turks who were bombing our men, and was then killed, shot in the head”

An ex-Sedbergh school boy, he played cricket and football, rowed for University College Oxford and was an enthusiastic golfer. He was the son of John D Milne of Cheadle. His father was the owner of Kendal Milne’s department store, Deansgate, Manchester, now trading as The House of Fraser.

Lieutenant John Reginald Lingard, 1st/6th Manchester Regiment died at Krithia Nullah on August 21, 1915. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, he was a solicitor in Manchester when war broke out. His father Thomas of Fellside Windermere was also a solicitor and a JP.

Lieutenant Colonel George F Broadrick, the commanding officer of 6th Border. A career soldier, he is credited with training the Battalion from its formation in September 1914 and commanding it when they landed at Sulva Bay on August 6, 1915 as part of 11th Division. Aged 45, he was the son of Lieutenant R F Broadrick RN and Frances (nee Crewdson) of Highfield Windermere.

On August 22, 1915 the Battalion attacked the Turkish positions near Chocolate and Green Hills and Lieutenant Colonel Broadrick was killed. Captain Frank Clegg of Hawesmead Kendal, whose name is on the war memorial at Kendal Golf Club, was also killed in this action.

From August 6 until they were evacuated from the Peninsula on December 18, 1915, about 230 officers and men of the 6th Battalion Border Regiment lost their lives. The number of wounded is not recorded.

By today’s standards the casualty lists of 1915 are enormous. Sadly they proved merely to be the precursors of something unimaginably worse.

Truly as Admiral Fisher wrote to Churchill on 5th April 1915: “Damn the Dardenelles, they will be our grave”