332 replies to this topic

[Bryn]

You don't think so? Don't think what? That he used the passive tense? There is no agent in the sentence. That's passive tense. He did not say, 'I found a woman'; he said, 'a woman was found'.

[T8HANTS]

This is getting like UFO's, you either believe because you want to, despite the lack of evidence. Or because of the lack of evidence, you don't believe.

Due to the passage of time it is quite unprovable, even a photograph would have to have exceptional provenance to be of any use.

G

[michaeldr]

You don't think so? Don't think what? That he used the passive tense? There is no agent in the sentence. That's passive tense. He did not say, 'I found a woman'; he said, 'a woman was found'.

Davidson makes no extravagant claim
He did NOT say it was a woman sniper
He did NOT day she was the Turkish Boadicea
He simply stated a fact; a woman's body was found

[After that and only then, did he enter the realm of speculation
in an attempt to find an explanation for this rather unusual fact.]

How far forward does it take this debate?
Almost nowhere
Except, that I cannot now accept the argument that there were no women snipers because there were no women
However, I still do not know if there were women snipers

regards
Michael

[bob lembke]

Once again.

I have recently found more sources from the German/Turkish side. I am currently reading two of them, and am translating a third. I think that I am moderately knowledgable about what was going on on the Turkish/German side, presumably more than most of us, as almost everything moderately reliable is written in German or Turkish. I have attempted the latter, it is a nightmare, but have read what seems to be the bulk of the German-language sources. Just found a new one the other day that almost no one knows about. In due time all will be revealed.

Incidentally, I was reading Morgenthau the other day, and he was visiting Gallipoli with Enver Pascha and some other Turkish leaders, and at the town of Gallipoli he said that all the civilians had been evacuated out of the theatre. Everyone.  Flat-out all. Now, IMHO, a lot of Morgenthau is probably the truth, (he of course knew and talked with everyone, and was very smart), and a lot of it is propaganda, and he clearly was both bitterly anti-Turk and anti-German. In fact, if you know about US politics in the period, no one could get the post of American Ambassador to Turkey without being clearly anti-Turk, by any reasonable definition. So you have to be very careful using him, but some parts seem to be reliable, and they are an interesting read. This account seems believable.

Could a Turkish woman be killed on the battle-field and found by the Brits? Anything is possible in the extreme, but it seems very remote. Who was she?  The only thing that seems possible to me was that she was a female posing as a male in the ranks, as occurred occasionally in some armies. However, depending on how the Turks ran their army, it could have been impossible. I have referred to the Imams in each battalion. They were very influential, perhaps powerful, and they would not have tolerated it for a second, and I am sure 96% of the OR/EM would go straight to them if he heard of such a thing. The company-level wink-and-nod that probably occurred in western armies sometimes would not have worked.

To a certain degree, especially in technical services, the Germans had an important role in managing the Turkish Army at Gallipoli. Did the Turkish Army have "short arm inspection", or parade? They certainly did take place periodically in my father's German Army of the period. The company was drawn up and each man had to produce his penis, and a doctor or medical assistant would inspect each for STDs. What sort of intake physical exam was done in the Turkish Army? None? In the German Army of the period there was mass washing, de-lousing, and perhaps swimming in the nude. These, with the exception of the last, were not optional. I have seen a description of an entire German battalion, officers and men, without a stitch, sitting in a very large dining room eating bowls of soup while all of their clothes were being deloused. Not an optional exercise. Or 20 men pooping together on a plank poopaterium.  

The passage recently cited, by the MO stating that a woman's corpse had been found on the battlefield, to me, by its grammar, does not indicate that the doctor saw or examined "her". You would think that he would have written more if he had the chance to look at her, examine the remains, etc. Actually, there still were some eunechs (sp?) in Turkey at that time. Remote, but certainly more likely than a real woman.

A favorite WW I book of mine is The War as the Infantry Saw It, by the Brit MO (actually by a committee - name slips me for a minute). Recently I mentioned on this Forum that the book mentions repeated examples of the French shooting Flemish civilians in France and Belgium in 1918 for odd things, like plowing with white horses, or hanging wash out, some being young women actually personally known to the author(s), and I was told by senior Pals not to take it seriously, that these British memoirs are full of inventions. Which is it?    

You really have to read how desperate conditions, supply, water, etc. were for the Turks. The idea of women among the Turkish troops is really curious. Did the Brits on the Somme on 7/1/16 bring women along on their stroll thru the wire? How would you react to my claiming that? It of course is "possible".

Bob

[bob lembke]

Morgenthau's visit was not dated, but was very early in 1915, probably before the landings. I think he said that the entire population had been taken to the Asiatic side.

Bob

[Bryn]

"Davidson makes no extravagant claim
He did NOT say it was a woman sniper
He did NOT day she was the Turkish Boadicea
He simply stated a fact; a woman's body was found"

I did NOT say he said it was a woman sniper.
I did NOT say he said she was the Turkish Boadicea

I SAID he used the passive voice rather than stating that he himself had found a woman's body. That is a fact and I'm not sure why it seems so difficult to grasp. He does not claim that he found a woman's body, but that a woman's body 'was found'. The writer separates himself from the supposed event, and that leads me to believe he is repeating something he heard. That's my prerogative and my interpretation of what he's written. Others may want to believe he saw a woman's body, even though he says no such thing. That's their prerogative.

[Myrtle]

Bob
An interesting read. Thank you.
I am at present unable to dismiss the possibility of there having been Turkish women fighters at Gallipoli. When looking at the stories of women such as Dorothy Lawrence (British and at the front for two weeks disguised as a soldier) and Albert F. a northern girl who dressed as a man, successfully worked as a printer for a couple of years and then tried to join up in 1916, I can not dismiss the possibility that there may have been young Turkish women who also attempted to fight for their country and that one or some may have succeeded.
As the following passage illustrates there was a movement of emancipation in Turkey during the early 1900s.

1908–14
  
Promotion of women's rights. The Young Turk Revolution gave a boost to the movement to improve the status of women. Some Young Turks advocated the emancipation of women as a key to progress in the empire. Various women's groups emerged, among them the Association for the Advancement of Women founded in 1908 by Halide Edip Adivar, who sought improved education for women. A more radical group, the Society for the Defense of Women's Rights (founded 1912), demanded the economic emancipation of women and their access to employment in the public sector. There were also several journals devoted to feminist concerns.  
The movement and its achievements remained modest, limited largely to the elite. Conservative religious authorities upheld the prohibitions against the mixing of the sexes in public, and during the Balkan Wars (1912–13) some even argued that the emancipation of women had contributed to Ottoman defeats.


Myrtle

[Myrtle]

I have also been wondering if there is a possibility that "Albanian Virgins" fought with the Turkish forces.

Albanian Virgins


Myrtle

[ian turner]

I have followed these exchanges for some time, and agree that it is impossible to deliver a knock out blow from either side of this debate. But like any legal case the jury must decide on the balance of probabilities. Personally I very much doubt the chances of the female Turkish sniper. I also think it unlikely that a female would have been able to disguise herself as a man and serve alongside them at the front.

Davidson's 'report' of the finding of a female corpse at Gulley Ravine is indeed a report, not his personal testament. I also understood that the 28th June attack at Gulley Ravine was poorly supported by artillery, allowing the Turks to decimate the attacking forces, effectively squandering the transferred units which made up the numbers of the Royal Scots who had been lost in the Gretna railway disaster. My Great Uncle was one of those killed at Gulley Ravine. Were the Turkish positions there really 'ploughed up'?

Perhaps the female, if she existed,  was a civilian who evaded evacuation of the area? Impossble to do more than speculate.

I cannot add to the debate from either side but, as a so far 'passive onlooker' I am not persuaded by any argument presented by the  'for' camp.

Ian

[bob lembke]

I have also been wondering if there is a possibility that "Albanian Virgins" fought with the Turkish forces.

Albanian Virgins


Myrtle

Myrtle;

Quite interesting. I know a bit about Albania and Albanian society; haven't entered, but have spent about 18 months in the immediate vicinity (only know four-five words of Albanian, which I think they call Sqiptari (sp?), which I think translates to "Eagle-speak"; they fancy themselves eagles). Their traditional ways are really extreme, and my extreme Serbian nationalist friends, who hate Albanians on principle (an issue dating to 1389, Vidovdan), nevertheless really admired them for the extreme nature of their blood-feuds and other nutty stuff, and even drove up to New York City to party with them, in a terrible slum area of the Bronx that the municipal authorities have given up on and the Albanians have taken over, although the population is mostly "non-white".

But I had not heard of the "Albanian Virgins". A couple of reasons why it is unlikely that some went to Gallipoli. First of all, the two cultures are quite different, and of course about half the Albanians were/are Christian. Religion was not mentioned in the piece; we do not know if it is a Muslim tradition, a Christian tradition, or if it spans the communities. (Speaking of virgins, the Virgin Mary is quite a Muslim saint, they accept her virgin pregnancy, although the Muslim spin on Christ's birth (Christ being one of the top five Muslim saints, John the Baptist being another) is different, and to my mind more fun than the Christian story. I have heard that the Qur-ran has more text on the Virgin Mary than the Bible does, but I have not verified that myself.) So it is very unlikely that the Turkish authorities and military would allow it themselves.

Secondly, why would an Albanian want to voluntarily fight for the Turks?

Thirdly, it is extremely unlikely that an Albanian woman would know Turkish. A man, perhaps. How and why would an Albanian woman know Turkish? From dating, or sitting about in coffee-houses chatting Turks up? The languages are very, very different (I believe), and Turkish at least enormously difficult. If you think it would be hard for a Turkish woman to "pass" in a Turkish unit, it would be impossibly difficult for an Albanian woman to "pass". And if the Imams would object to a woman in a unit, they would go bezerk (sp?) at the idea of an Albanian woman in a unit.

Turkish units were ethnically segregated, partially just to facilitate communication. (If American blacks spoke Albanian, they still would be in segregated units, IMHO.) I have heard of Armenian units (later only work batallions), Greek, Arab, etc., but not units from the Balkans, I can't recall any. So again an Albanian woman would stick out like a sore thumb. The only units I can recall fighting at Gallipoli were Turkish units and some Arab regiments.        

You are right about the liberal take of the Young Turks to women. Didn't the new Turkish government, in the 1920s, give Turkish women the vote before they got it in the US? But that does not mean that they wanted women in combat units. That is, unfortunately, a lot of trouble. The Israelis had women in combat units, and they reversed that, not because the women behaved badly; the men did, being overly protective, etc. It is done in the US (sort of), but it is a big problem; 10% of all US women soldiers are pregnant at any point in time, I understand, frankly, it is very hard for women in the recent combat, a great deal of sexual abuse and rape, the vast majority not being reported, or leading to a very bad outcome for the woman if she reports. But recently the US has been desperate for "manpower" with the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, without the women it is hard to see how the US Army could have operated recently. We recently had a case at the US Air Force Academy where a woman cadet was raped, and the woman was treated very badly "by the system", treated as an offender, not a victim, and had to leave; the interesting thing is that her mother was there, a full Air Force colonel on the faculty, and even she could not protect her daughter from abuse by the system.

I think that I am very supportive of women, have been all my life, for 13 years most of my socialization was with a good number of lesbians (I could get even juicier here, but will spare you), but I really feel that women in the front lines is a big problem, and the problems are not with the women, it is with the men, the beasts.

Is there a known example of a British woman, not dressing up and hanging about the front for a little while, but getting into a unit, being in combat, etc? If one did sucessfully she probably would "tell her tale" after the war, one would think.

The real test would be how the Turkish Army ran their induction and medical services in WW I. Certainly it would have been flat out impossible in the German Army of the period.

I agree with Bryn tht the passage, as posted above, seems to be the repeating of a rumor about a woman's body, not the testimony of a witness doctor. Even if you take it seriously, consider the possibility of a eunech or of an abnormal physiology. (A friend of mine, a doctor and a professor of medicine, had a specialty dealing with such cases in children, and in some cases, depending on his assessment, sometimes had a child who was a boy but looked like a girl surgically converted to a girl (of sorts), sometimes without the explicit permission of the parents.) Between such anomalities and the damage of shellfire and perhaps decomposition a man (of sorts) might be mistaken for a woman, without a professional examination. It would be a long shot, but more probable than an actual woman serving in the Turkish Army there.

Bob  

[Myrtle]

Bob
I came across the "Albanian Virgins" when reading Julie Wheelwright's book "Amazons and Military Maids" that discusses the role of those women who throughout the ages have dressed as soldiers and sailors and served as men during a variety of conflicts.
I have read that over 80,000 Albanians were sent to Turkey between 1913 and the 1940s and wondered if any of them fought with the Turks during WW1. I would have thought that some of the Muslim Albanians would have been sympathetic to the Turkish cause.

Myrtle

[ian turner]

Ah, a bit of research and I have found the source of the 'woman sniper of Gallipoli'! They were supplied by the German army after all.....

(Picture from Flickr)

Attached Files

•  3057575050_2ddcb51448.jpg   92.7K   1 downloads

[Sgt_Hazell_Great_Grandson]

Bet there was more than one , and i dont bet freely.

[Myrtle]

Myrtle;

Religion was not mentioned in the piece; we do not know if it is a Muslim tradition, a Christian tradition, or if it spans the communities. (Bob

Film commentary says that Pashe Keqi attends the Mosque and prays alongside the men.

Myrtle

[Myrtle]

The Times 25th July 1911

Attached Files

•  Albanian_Virgins_Times.jpg   12.26K   1 downloads

[bob lembke]

Film commentary says that Pashe Keqi attends the Mosque and prays alongside the men.

Myrtle

You are right, I missed that. Again, not an expert, but in my contacts with Albanian culture I have not heard of a lot of difference between the Christian and Muslim Albanians, but I might be all wet.

I have an Albanian-American friend of 35+ years, he has a nice condo over the waterfront in Philadelphia, an apartment in Paris, and a villa on Corfu, which is only a mile or two by boat from Albania. Speaking of Corfu, he said to me: "Somethimes I go for Turkish coffee on Corfu, and sometimes I take a water-taxi to Albania for a coffee. The coffee is more expensive on Corfu, but when I go to Albania I have to hire a guy with an AK-47, so I don't get kidnapped, so economically the difference is a wash." He is a member of a large and powerful family, so I think that he can hire a bodyguard that he can trust. In the 1970's he actually was able to visit Albania during its really crazy period, and had wild stories.

My Serb friends, who hate Albanians as a matter of principle, but went to NYC to party with them, told me a story of Albanians in NYC which illustrated how nutty they were, leading to Serb admiration. There had been a blood feud going on for 50 years or so, in Albania, and then spilling into the US, and finally there was a NYC murder which finally tied up all the loose ends, the blood feud was resolved. (These matters have an elaborate and well-understood etiquette or choreography.) The NYC police were putting the latest killer, handcuffed,  in a police car. The matter was resolved. As the guy was pushed in the rear door of the police car, an Albanian woman, 8 months pregnant, snatched a gun from one of the many NYC policemen and shot the handcuffed prisoner to death. The blood-feud was on again!!! This was the sort of nuttiness that my Serb friends thought fantastic, worthy of great admiration.

My best Serb friend, who I considered one of my best friends, attacked me bitterly when he heard that I had visited Turkey once, and our friendship failed. I had visited Serbija many times.

There is another point that I forgot to make. If you listen to the "Albanian Virgin" piece, it seems that the women usually take up the status to become a head of household, to assume leadership when there is an authority vacumn in the family. If they traveled to a foreign country to fight for that country, they could hardly lead the family. Additionally, their special status would likely not be understood or recognized.

I love ethnic nuttiness!      

Bob

[Myrtle]

Bob
As you realise I do not have evidence that Albanians joined the Turkish army but I do wonder what happened to the large number of Albanians who were taken to Turkey from 1913 onwards.
Myrtle

[bob lembke]

Bob
As you realise I do not have evidence that Albanians joined the Turkish army but I do wonder what happened to the large number of Albanians who were taken to Turkey from 1913 onwards.
Myrtle

I know nothing about that. The 1913 - 1914, the 1914-1918, and the 1919 to the 1940's periods were very different situations. What is meant by "taken to"? Does it imply the "child tax"? Not that many years ago the Bulgarians were very brutal to their ethnic Turkish minority and many fled to Turkey, I met one in Istanbul. Don't know what Turkey and Albania had in common after WW I.

It was only after I first visited Turkey that I understood how Turkish Bosnia is.

I have told Serb friends: "You guys are really smart. You got rid of the Turks in the 19th Century, the Germans in 1945, and now you have the Turkish and German Armies on the soil of Jugoslavija." It is interesting to note that, after the Dutch Army turned the Muslims over to the Serbs in Srebrenica, and 7000 or more were killed, the UN turned the defense of Sarajevo over to the Turkish Army. No more wimpy EU types.

Bob

[Myrtle]

Bob
Following the First Balkan War the Ottoman territory was dispersed. I believe that the people who went to Turkey 1913 onwards were probably the Muslims from Chameria, an area inhabited by Albanians and Turks that was taken over by Greece.

Myrtle

[Bill Woerlee]

Myrtle

You said to Bob:

"As you realise I do not have evidence that Albanians joined the Turkish army"

Just to confirm your supposition as fact, here is an extract from the Turkish publication called "ÞEHÝTLERÝMÝZ" which translates to something like "Our Martyrs", it being a listing of all known people in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey who died in service of that national entity.

Here is the extract:

ÞEHÝTLERÝMÝZ
Sýra No. 2
Savaþ BÝRÝNCÝ DÜNYA SAVAÞI
Cephe ---
Birlik - Kuvvet K
Birlik - Ordu 0
Birlik - Kolordu 0
Birlik - Fýrka 0
Birlik - Alay 0
Birlik - Tabur 0
Birlik - Bölük 0
Lakap ---
Baba Adý ALÝ
Adý ÝSMAÝL
Sýnýf ---
Rütbe TEÐMEN
Doðum Yeri 42
Ýlçe ---
Bucak ---
Köy ---
Ölüm Tarihi - Gün 0
Ölüm Tarihi - Ay 11
Ölüm Tarihi - Yýl 1914
Ölüm Yeri MEYDAN-I HARPDE
Askerlik Þubesi ELBASAN
Özel Birlik ---
Yer ELBASAN


In English, we have a fellow by the name of Lieutenant Ishmael, the son of Ali, who came from Elbasan, Albania. His unit is not stated. At the age of 42, he was killed in battle at some unknown location, sometime in November 1914. "MEYDAN-I HARPDE" deals with the notion of "pitched battle" or "on the battlefield" and unless it is preceded by a place name, it's not very helpful except in stating the obvious. So the record is vague and very unhelpful in this matter.

I have two men from Elbasan listed as having been killed in action with the Ottoman Army. Regardless of the paeans of praise spent on the Ottoman record keeping, only 10% of the deaths that occurred in service during the Great War have actually been recorded. Those from the outlying provinces or former provinces fare even worse. It is a miracle that we still do have these names. The possession of these names indicates the presence of Albanians within the Ottoman Army despite the cession of the province during the Balkan Wars.

As to the existence of "Virgin Soldiers", an extrapolation from "Virgin Men" [an obvious oxymoron unless a castrati ] that is rather a long bow to draw in the Gallipoli episode, regardless of how fascinating the subject.  And Myrtle, it is absolutely fascinating and quite frankly, unless you had not drawn it to our attention, I would never have known about them. So thanks for that as I am always interested in broadening my understanding of the regions.

Cheers

Bill

[Bill Woerlee]

Ian

Mate, I have to agree with your comments. It's a bit like trying to prove the existence of God, Santa Claus or Mr Hanky. It does not matter that no evidence is available, folks will always believe in the reality of their being. As the famous quote goes: "You and I are both atheists, it's just that I believe in one less God than you."

Cheers

Bill

[Myrtle]

Bill
Thank you for confirming that Albanians fought with the Turkish Army. I thought that it was a possibility, as I believe I am correct in saying that  Mustafa Kemal's father was Turkish Albanian and Kamel's maternal grandfather was a farmer from Southern Albania.
I realise that it is a long bow to draw regarding "Albanian Virgins" being at Gallipoli but it seems to me that if there had been women fighting on the Peninsula, the AVs would have certainly been likely contenders.

P.S. I like the reference to long bows - it must be something to do with my Welsh heritage  

[Bill Woerlee]

Myrtle

Glad to give you a hand there, although the long bow gets me all a quiver, unlike me who is old and grey and bent in the middle like a one string fiddle - sort of like the long bow I guess but just proportioned differently with an Australian twang.

During the Great War in the land down under, we had our own version of the AV, although in this case the "Australian Virgin" vide "Albanian" who made a name as the "Maid of Kurri Kurri" although not quite in the same manner as her example from Orleans. I speak of Maud Butler. Here is her 15 minutes of fame:

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse...02/maud-butler/

This is the woman who got caught. Were there other women who successfully joined the AIF and fought alongside the men in the trenches or roamed the plains of the Sinai? We don't know because they were not discovered. However, the likelihood of discovery was very high, especially during the compulsory and very regular "short arm" parades or just in performance of daily ablutions.

In the first flush of war, there was a plethora of candidates in all armies who wanted nothing better than a glorious death in service of their country. Most of this cohort had their wish fulfilled by the end of 1915.

There was no shortage of Turkish men who wanted to become martyrs for the defence of the homeland as Gallipoli was for the Anatolians. There was no shortage of anything at Gallipoli as far as the Ottomans were concerned. They had more men, more ammunition, more mobility and more sticking power than the Allies and so they won.

In this mix there was little need for reinforcements from other groups or genders as became the need later on in the war for most belligerents. The Russians formed their widow's battalions as a propaganda tool and also to relieve the state of some pesky pensioners. Other nations recruited women into non combatant duties and roles, some getting very close to the front lines. And for the Ottomans, it wasn't until 1916 that the army was plagued by desertions on an unimaginable scale - anything up to 50% of units. But all of that occurred after Gallipoli. The victory at Gallipoli was the high water mark of the Ottoman Army. There isn't an imaginable context in which would lead to the introduction of women into the framework of the military structure. Any woman taking personal initiative to get to the front line and discovered, would have been removed asap from any military area.

On all sides, women were seen as a dangerous impediment and distraction in an essentially "man's" world. One only has to read the thoughts of various commanders regarding prostitutes and the spreading of various STDs. Basically, any woman with an STD was accused of being a traitor and working on behalf of the enemy to lay low the troops of the Allies by use of the "honey trap" rather than bullets while achieving the same results. Any woman with an STD in an Allied country, if apprehended, could look forward to doing a couple years doing porridge at HM's Pleasure.

In Cairo, the swathe of poxy pros were "obviously" in the pay of the Ottoman Sultan and thus the police were charged with the duty of keeping the men out of their clutches by having areas declared as out of bounds. Not that the troops in Cairo saw these available women as the Sultan's hirelings. This can be attested to by the number of men sent back to Langwarrin on the "Ships of Shame", then later on held in Cairo in isolation units - for Australians it was the Abbassia Detention Barracks Isolation Hospital. Finally, by 1918, the AIF gave up blaming the individuals, took responsibility for putting men in the situation and began issuing condoms with lessons on their usage.

In this cultural context with such ferment, the presence of a woman in any of the armies at Gallipoli would have been detected very quickly regardless of the role played by that individual.

My initial reason for undertaking this study was the consequence of the newspaper story in the Times at the commencement of this thread. I attempted to track down the story and found that multiple stories existed dealing with different landing sites. The one thing that was consistent with all the stories was the lack of specific detail. No one had seen these events and recited them from their own knowledge - it was always someone from some other unidentifiable unit. I have read all the available War Diaries written by the Allied units at Gallipoli and the singular result is a complete absence of any mention about a captured or killed female sniper. An event such as this which excited the London Times to publish that story in 1915 might just have found its way to a War Diary account from some unit at Gallipoli but sadly it didn't, not then and not now. That we get account after account of this same story iterated and reiterated with the same characteristic vagaries indicates that the theme is powerful in the minds of people and thus when played out, like an urban legend, seeks to place a moral to the narrative which has little to do with the sniper per se but more to do with the contemporaneous social context of the audience.

In this round about way, we come to the Albanian Virgins. It is imperative to examine the context of their existence - which I have little knowledge of at the moment - and then establish whether such an institution would meld seamlessly within the framework of the Ottoman Army in 1915 to allow one such example to roam the hills of Gallipoli taking the odd pot shot here and there. It is imperative to establish this idea that the two concepts be examined simultaneously to establish the possibility. Otherwise it just becomes another teleological debate which can be very pretty but the harvest is bare.

Cheers

Bill

[Tunesmith]

The one thing that was consistent with all the stories was the lack of specific detail. No one had seen these events and recited them from their own knowledge - it was always someone from some other unidentifiable unit.

Bill, here's an account I found just now.

    "In the Line of Battle -  Soldiers' Stories of the War" Edited by WALTER WOOD (P. 60 Ch 4.)

    Private John Frank Gray, 5th  Battalion Wiltshire Regiment.

    ..It was round Chocolate Hill  that we made our queerest find of all — women snipers. There was a kind of  blockhouse which had been a farmhouse, and it had a very fine well, which had  some very fine water — a precious thing. There was a big run on the well, and a  lot of fellows were shot by snipers who could not be traced, till a fellow in a  Welsh regiment swore that he could see some one moving in some trees not very  far away. A machine-gun was brought up, and fifty rounds or so were fired into  the trees, which dropped some very rare fruit — four men Turks and one woman  Turk, all snipers. When we went up we found that they were almost naked, and  had their faces and hands and bodies and rifles painted green to match the  trees. And there they roosted, like evil birds, potting at our chaps whenever  they got the chance, which was pretty often. This was such a good haul that  firing was directed on all the trees, and more snipers were brought down,  including several women. Some of the women wore trousers, like the men, and  some had a kind of full grey-coloured skirt. They were as thin as rats, and  looked as if they had had nothing to eat for months. I think there were six or  seven women snipers caught in the trees, and it is said that the Turks have  women in the trenches; but I don't know if that is true. I saw one woman sniper  who had been caught by the New Zealanders. I don't know what was done with her;  but as the men came back they told us they had bagged her in a dug-out, where  she had a machine-gun and a rifle, and that she seemed to have been doing a  very good business in sniping…

            

http://www.archive.o...attle00woodrich inlineofbattle00woodrich_djvu.txt

  

  I don't suggest all or any of this is either true or untrue but, contrary to your own reported findings, it is at least a detailed account by a named eyewitness belonging to a named unit.

Tunesmith

[bob lembke]

Tunesmith;

There are a number of things in that account which suggest that it is fanciful. One is the idea that a woman sniper in a dugout, who was captured, had a MG, and a rifle. The Turks had very few MGs, four or less per regiment, usually, I think, and there were four or less MGs in a MG company, about 30 men per MG. The German MG 08, their most common weapon, weighted about 140 pounds with its sled-base, and you needed quite a crew to carry and man it, to carry ammunition, and to protect this extremely scarce and valuable weapon, and to quickly pull it back if threatened. Even the German MG units who went to the front sometimes didn't have MGs and had to rely on captured British MGs. The idea of this woman having her own MG is absurd. It was not a Sten gun. Why not her own howitzer? To the Turks, a MG was probably worth the lives of 20 or 30 soldiers. One person could not even serve such a weapon; at the time, the Germans, with many more MGs at hand, had six MGs in a MG company.

What is this "almost naked" business? Even painted green, a semi-naked man or woman would be more visable than a person in baggy/ragged neutral-colored clothing. It is not very practical or comfortable being up in a tree for days nude. And the idea of a Turkish unit having both men and women and being in combat "almost naked" is just weird. It is simply the product of a sexually-deprived mind. Fantasy.

Bob