Charles Doughty-Wylie

He led the storming of a hill above the Gallipoli beachhead.

Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie VC CB CMG helped organise the advance from V Beach at Gallipoli on 26 April 1915. Following the costly landings, he and Captain Garth Walford gathered troops and led them through Sedd-el-Bahr toward the commanding ground above the beach. Doughty-Wylie was killed near the summit of Hill 141. His leadership helped secure the position and brought a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Born at Theberton, Suffolk, in 1868, he attended Winchester and Sandhurst before entering the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1889. His active service ranged from India and the Sudan to South Africa and Somaliland. He was wounded in India and during the Boer War. In 1904 he married Lilian Wylie and adopted her surname alongside his own.

His later career included diplomatic and humanitarian work. As British vice-consul in southern Turkey he intervened during the massacres of Armenians at Adana in 1909 and helped organise relief. During the Balkan Wars he directed Red Cross work with the Turkish forces. Service on an international boundary commission brought further recognition, while the Ottoman government awarded him the Order of the Medjidie.

He joined the staff of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force for the Gallipoli campaign. His death on 26 April 1915, aged 46, ended his service before he could receive the Victoria Cross. He was buried where he fell, in an isolated grave overlooking the battlefield.

Victoria Cross citation

On 26th April, 1915, subsequent to a landing having been effected on the beach at a point on the Gallipoli Peninsula, during which both Brigadier-General and Brigade Major had been killed, Lieutenant-Colonel Doughty-Wylie and Captain Walford organised and led an attack through and on both sides of the village of Sedd-el-Bahr on the Old Castle at the top of the hill inland. The enemy’s position was very strongly held and entrenched, and defended with concealed machine-guns and pom-poms. It was mainly due to the initiative, skill and great gallantry of these two Officers that the attack was a complete success. Both were killed in the moment of victory.