Maritime History of ANZAC Cove

• Published in: Oceanography (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2011-03, Vol.24 (1), p.20-21
• Main Authors: Brennan, Michael L., Coleman, Dwight, Roman, Christopher N., Turanli, Tufan, Davis, Dan, Catsambis, Alexis, Moore, James, Merrigan, Maureen, Bajdek, Brennan, Whitesell, Daniel, Ballard, Robert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Marine
• ISSN: 1042-8275; 2377-617X

The entrance to Dardanelles Strait in the North Aegean Sea was the site of one of the greatest maritime battles of World War I. Mines sank a large number of warships during the Allied fleet's attempt to storm through to Istanbul in March 1915, and U-boats sank others a few months later during the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) landing on the Gallipoli peninsula (Rudenno, 2008). In 2009, the first expedition of Nautilus filmed and documented some of these wrecks for a National Geographic documentary. Hercules and Argus dived on HMS Irresistible inside Canakkale Strait, the submarine AE2 in the Sea of Marmara (Figure 1a), SMS Breslau outside the Dardanelles (Figure 1b), and HMS Triumph off Anzac Cove, where a landing craft from the battle was also filmed (Figure 1c). Battleships Irresistible and Triumph lie capsized on the seabed, while Breslau is upright with portions of its superstructure and guns still visible (Figure 1b). We also located and filmed a landing craft near Anzac Beach.