Fundraising Organised for Last Survivor of Gallipoli

Museum bosses in Portsmouth are calling on the public to donate as little as £1 in a month-long fundraising campaign to restore the Royal Navy’s last surviving ship from Gallipoli.

Monitor HMS M33 is due to reopen in the city’s historic dockyard this summer, 100 years after its 6in guns hammered Turkish positions in Suvla Bay.

The small vessel – 20ft shorter than a Hunt-class minehunter, but with one and a half times the crew – is currently hidden beneath tarpaulin in a dry dock a stone’s throw from HMS Victory.

Although the Heritage Lottery Fund has given nearly £2m to the restoration project, the National Museum of the Royal Navy needs to raise £250,000 to complete the ship’s revamp.

As part of those efforts, the museum is turning to ‘crowdfunding’ for the first time. The month-long crowdfunding appeal, which runs until March 16th, has set itself the target of £19,150 – and after just three days is one eighth of its way to that goal.

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Image: Royal Navy