Modest Hero’s Brass Bell

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 75, 20 June 1927, Page 12

Modest Hero’s Brass Bell

Relic of Gallipoli Landing

A modest little man sat in the front pew at the memorial service to the 29th Division (Gallipoli) at Holy Trinity ChLirch, Eltham, on the anniversary of the immortal landing. No one suspected that he was a war hero. He bore the name of F. C. Smith, and he brought with him a fish basket in which was the brass bell of the old steamship River Clyde. This he put at the foot of the altar in the little chapel of St. Agnes, where the official memorial to the 29th Division has been erected.

During the historic landing at Gallipoli Mr. F. C. Smith was Coxswain Smith, and he stood courageously at the wheel of the River Clyde when she forced a landing on the beach on April 25, 1915, with 4,000 troops aboard, all volunteers from H.M.S. Hussar, under Captain Unwin, V.C. There she lay for five weeks under fire. The old brass bell used to strike the time. Mr. Smith has been offered as much as £750 for this old bell, but he resolutely declines to part with it. He is no longer a sailor, but a steward of the British Legion Club at Erith. After the bell had been inspected by the congregation he put it back in his fish basket and took it home again, a silent relic of one of the most hazardous feats of the war.