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Airdate: Gallipoli’s Deep Secrets

The man who discovered the remains of the Titanic will search the waters off Gallipoli peninsula for WW II battleships.

Another World Premiere documentary airs on the History Channel this ANZAC Day with Gallipoli’s Deep Secrets, uncovering new information not on the battlefields, but at the bottom of the sea.

Featuring the man responsible for the historic discovery of the sunken R.M.S. Titanic, renowned deep-sea explorer Dr Robert Ballard, this one-hour documentary is narrated by actor Colin Friels.

Ballard takes an eight-day expedition onboard his ship the Nautilus in the straits of the Dardanelles, as he sets out to determine why the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 went so horribly wrong and became one of the bloodiest and most futile battles of the modern era.

Ballard discovers that even though the battle of Gallipoli was known as a land campaign, there are a staggering array of shipwrecks and sunken relics – including the Australian submarine the AE2 – lying in the waters that surround the Gallipoli peninsula that prove that every catastrophic turn of the campaign can actually be traced back to events that occurred at sea, not on land as the history books tell us.

“In doing these expeditions we have an opportunity to re-tell important chapters in human history,” said Ballard.

On March 18, 1915, weeks before the infamous land assault of the Gallipoli peninsula, a large Allied fleet, under the directive of a young and ambitious Winston Churchill, launched an audacious attempt to capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul) – but the naval campaign proved to be a disaster and the might of the Allied fleet was defeated by the Turks in just one day.

This event set off a chain reaction – it was the failure of the naval campaign that led to the massive land campaign which resulted in bloody fighting and the loss of more than half a million lives.

Through this fascinating sea voyage, Ballard finds the ship that started it all, former German ship the Breslau. At the start of the war, Turkey was neutral but when they accepted the Breslau into their navy, Britain declared war on them. A few months later, the Gallipoli campaign would begin.

In the straits of the Dardanelles, Ballard discovers the HMS Irresistible, a battleship that was part of a large Allied fleet, but the battle ended in just one day, with three allied battleships on the bottom of the sea and three more crippled.

How did a depleted Turkish force defeat the might of an Allied fleet? As Ballard examines the wreck of HMS Irresistible, the answers are revealed.

Ballard also explores the Australian submarine the AE2, which was the only Australian vessel in the Allied Fleet and the only naval success amidst the carnage. The AE2 had truly led the way in the attack, being the first sub to break through the Narrows and encourage the ANZACS to dig in and fight.

How much of the story of the ANZACS and of the Gallipoli campaign would have been different had the AE2 not sent this message?

And at the most famous site at Gallipoli’s Anzac Cove, Ballard discovers a small but significant wreck that helps to unlock the failure of the subsequent land campaign.

“This film is a revisionist look at Gallipoli which was very exciting for me as a filmmaker. It was a great opportunity to push the envelope of our understanding of a well-known story,” said writer/director Julia Redwood.

Gallipoli’s Deep Secrets
is written and directed by Julia Redwood of Prospero Productions and airs at 7:30pm AEST Sunday April 25 on History.

One Response

  1. Hi My name is Shaun Sheridan and I live in Wollongong Australia. Thank you so much for making this documentary. My grandfather was aboard HMS Irresistable when she was sank. It was very moving to see the wreck. You mentioned there were only three engine room survivors and one must of been him.He was at that time a Mechanician in the engine room having been a stoker. His war office history shows he was transferred to a Destroyer Depot Ship called HMS Blenheim. His record shows that the Irresistable was sunk on 18th March 1915 and on the 19th March he is shown on the Blenheim. A ship I know nothing about. All of my grandfather medal were lost in the sinking ie his Boar War and Boxer revolution medals. His name was Patrick Sheridan and he was from Portsmouth England. I have a number of questions including do any crew photographs survive as I have none of his. Who do I contact to find out.
    Kind Regards and again thankyou so much for producing this film.
    Shaun Sheridan

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