Francis Morphet Twisleton

Francis Morphet Twisleton

Francis Morphet Twisleton (1873–1917): soldier

Francis Twisleton landed at Gallipoli on 20 May 1915. He wrote a number of private letters that provide an insight into the reality of trench warfare. Soon he adjusted to the 'very funny sort of life one leads, we burrow like rabbits and live more or less underground and do most of our work at night'.

Twisleton took part in the bloody assaults on Bauchop's Hill and Hill 60 during August 1915. In his vivid account of the second of these actions he described the roar of battle as so overpowering that he felt as though he 'was being driven into the ground by being hit on the head'. Twisleton was slightly wounded during the initial charge, and he took the opportunity afforded by a lull in the fighting to dig small pieces of shrapnel out of his leg with his pocket knife. In the aftermath of the battle for Hill 60, he commanded a post where the stench was appalling because it was partly constructed out of the bodies of Turkish soldiers. Later he wrote, 'I felt as though I could scrape the smell of dead men out of my mouth and throat and stomach in chunks.'

At the beginning of September 1915 Twisleton was evacuated from Gallipoli with severe dysentery; he did not return. For his bravery and initiative during the campaign he was awarded the Military Cross and mentioned in dispatches.