A Trojan Horse

During the planning of landings at Gallipoli, Commander Edward Unwin, formerly of the Dryad-class torpedo gunboat HMS Hussar proposed the use of an anonymous-looking collier as a Trojan Horse, carrying about 2,000 troops, to be run onto V Beach just after the first wave of about 2,000 troops had landed, doubling the number of troops in the first wave. On 12 April 1915 River Clyde was purchased by the Admiralty to be adapted to a landing ship for the joint French and British invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula. She retained her name.^[6] Openings were cut in her steel hull as sally ports from which troops would emerge onto broad gangways and then to a steam hopper (a flat-bottomed, shallow-draft boat used to collect spoil from a dredger).^[7]

A bridge of three lighters with special covered decks to make a pontoon bridge from the ship to the beach in case the gap between the ship and the lighter was too great, a survey of the beach being impractical. Number 3 Armoured Car Squadron Royal Naval Air Service (Lieutenant-Commander Josiah Wedgwood) was ordered to use 11 of his Maxim guns on the ship. Boiler plate and sandbags were mounted on the fo'c'sle, the upper deck and bridge for the guns.^[8] Work began on painting River Clyde's hull sandy yellow as camouflage, but this was incomplete by the time of the landing.^[7]

Mudros harbour

By 11 April 1915 River Clyde was in the natural harbour of Mudros on the Aegean island of Lemnos, where French and British ships were assembling in final preparation for the landings. The troops on River Clyde took the opportunity to practise quick disembarkation in full marching order and were issued with a pamphlet containing excerpts from textbooks on landings and combined operations with the Navy.^[9] The troop ship HMT Aragon reached Mudros from the Port of Alexandria in Egypt and transferred the 1st Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers and a company of the 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers (86th Brigade), two companies of the 2nd Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment,, a platoon of the Anson Battalion, the GHQ Signals Section, the Worcestershire Regiment Field Company RE and other detachments of the 88th Brigade, 29th Division to River Clyde.^[10]

V Beach

On 25 April 1915 River Clyde sailed to take part in the landing at Cape Helles. She was carrying 2,000 soldiers; mostly from 86th Brigade, units of the 29th Division, the 1st Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers and men from the 2nd Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment, the 1st Battalion, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.^[11] Unwin beached River Clyde at V Beach beneath the Sedd el Bahr castle, on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. The plan failed and the River Clyde, beached under the guns of the Ottoman defenders, became a death trap. Three attempts to land made by companies of Munsters, Royal Dublins and Hampshires were costly failures. Further landing attempts were abandoned and the surviving soldiers waited until nightfall before trying again. Members of River Clyde's crew maintained the footways from the ship to the beach and recovered the wounded.

Subsequent events

After the Helles beach-head was established, V Beach became the base for the French contingent and River Clyde remained beached as a quay and breakwater. Her condensers provided fresh water and her holds became a field dressing station. She remained a constant target for Turkish gunners ashore.