Eric Goldie
Eric James Goldie was born 3 October 1892 in Lindsay ON, and was the youngest of three living children of Arthur and Elizabeth Grace Goldie of Lindsay ON. He is shown on the 1901 Lindsay census as living with his grandfather, William Grace, as well as his mother and siblings. His father, an insurance broker, apparently had moved to England, where the family shows up together again on the 1911 UK and Wales census living in South Wales.
After joining the London and North West Railway as an apprentice under his uncle Sir Fredrick Harrison who was General Manager, Eric enlisted with the 3rd Royal Fusiliers, London Regiment, on 1 December 1914.
On 2 January 1915, Eric arrived in Malta with his battalion and began training. On 13 April 1915 they moved to Egypt, landing at Port Said before going on to garrison Khartoum in Sudan. On 15 September 1915, they left Khartoum and returned to Port Said before carrying on to Mudro. The battalion entered the Gallipoli Campaign on 26 September 1915 when it landed at Suvla Bay. During two months of trench holding, the battalion lost approximately half its strength. Then, on 26 November 1915, a massive storm hit the peninsula and the trenches were flooded, followed immediately by snow.
In Alan Moorehead’s book Gallipoli, he describes the situation faced by the men on the ground there during this time:
“For the past few days flocks of ducks and other birds migrating south from Russia has been passing over the peninsula, and although both armies, first the Turks and then the Allies, had enjoyed themselves blazing away with their rifles into the sky, it was clear that cold weather was soon coming. Yet no one – and certainly not the meteorologists who had been saying that November was the best month of the year – could have anticipated the horror and severity of the blizzard that swept down on the Dardenelles on November 27. Nothing like it had been known there for forty years.
For the first twenty-four hours rain poured down and violent thunderstorms raged over the peninsula. Then, as the wind veered round to the north and rose to hurricane force there followed two days of snow and icy sleet. After this there were two more nights of frost.
At Anzac and Cape Helles, the soldiers were well dug in, and there was some small protection from the surrounding hills, but at Sulva the men were defenceless. The earth there was so stony that in place of trenches stone parapets had been built above the ground. These burst open in the first deluge, and a torrent came rushing down to the Salt Lake carrying with it the bodies of Turks who had been drowned in the hills. Soon the lake was four feet deep and on both sides the war was forgotten. Turks and British alike jumped up on what was left of the parapets in full view of one another, and there they perched, numb and shivering, while the flood went by. Then, overnight, when the landscape turned to a universal white, dysentery vanished along with the flies and dust, but the cold was past all bearing. At Anzac, where many of the Australians and Indians were seeing snow for the first time, the dug-outs were knee-keep in slush, and the soldiers, still without winter kit, wrapped themselves in their sodden blankets. The freeze that followed was worse than any shelling. Triggers were jammed and refused to fire. At Helles sentries were found in the morning still standing, their rifles in their hands, but they were frozen to death. Blankets and bedding were so congealed with cold they could be stood on end. Everywhere mud had turned to ice and the roofs of the dugouts were lined with icicles as hard as iron. A tacit truce prevailed along the front while the men gave themselves up to the simple struggle of finding enough warmth to remain alive.”
Eric’s battalion was the worst hit of any unit: 50 men drowned, another 30 were evacuated with frostbite, and more died of exposure, leaving the battalion with an effective strength of just six officers and 50 other ranks. Eric is listed as dying from exposure on 28 November 1915, but his body has no known grave.
Eric Goldie’s name is listed on the Helles Memorial, near Sedd el Bahr, Turkey, which serves the dual function of a Commonwealth battle memorial for the whole Gallipoli campaign and a place of commemoration for many of those Commonwealth servicemen who died there and have no known grave. He was 23 years old.
