A SOUVENIR DINNER GONG CARVED FROM WOOD AND BRASS SHELL CASES RECOVERED FROM H.M.S. BACCHANTE, GALLIPOLI, 1915

of shield form with ship's badge and naval crown inscribed to front 'C.J.B. Gallipoli 1915', with hooks supporting three brass shell casings and leather bound striker, assembled dimensions -- 33 x 19in. (84 x 48cm.)

Bacchante was a 12,000 ton 'Cressy' class cruiser of 1901. Obsolete by the Great War, she was sent, along with several other pre-Dreadnoughts, to support the Gallipoli landings at Anzac Cove on the 25th April 1915. Armed with 2-9.2in. breach loaders and 12-6in guns (along with 12-quick firing guns and 2-18in. submerged torpedoe tubes) she suppressed the Turkish guns by actually touching her bow to the beach to get a better position. She remained for several months and was particularly effective during the Third Attack on Anzac Cove on 19th May where she and three other pre-Dreadnoughts again suppressed Turkish artillery with good effect. Her commander, Algernon Boyle, latterly supervised the evacuation of Anzac Cove, but Bacchante was not present having been sent to the Mediterranean, and then as flagship to Sierra Leone for the last year of the War. Paid off, she was broken up in 1920.