Second Lieutenant Hamo Sassoon, Royal Engineers, was the younger brother of Siegfried Sassoon, one of the celebrated ‘War Poets’. On 28 October 1915 Hamo was serving with the British at Suvla Bay. Going out into No Man’s Land to supervise the construction of barbed wire entanglements, he was very badly wounded in the leg. Although he made light of his injury, the medical officer diagnosed a serious wound which would necessitate amputation. He was taken aboard the hospital ship SS KILDONAN CASTLE where he died on 1November 1915 from the effects of his wound. He was later buried at sea and his name is on one of panels of the Helles Memorial.
Siegfried Sassoon later wrote this touching poem for his brother:
TO MY BROTHER
Give me your hand, my brother, search my face;
Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame;
For we have made an end of all things base.
We are returning by the road we came.
Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead,
And I am in the field where men must fight.
But in the gloom I see your laurell’d head
And through your victory I shall win the light.
(We are grateful to Robert Pike for providing the poem and the above information)
