The Best Gallipoli Yarns and Forgotten Stories

by Jim Haynes

  While swimming, the opportunity was taken by a good many to soak their pants and shirt, inside which there was, very often, more than the owner himself. I saw one man fish his pants out; after examining the seams, he said to his pal, ‘They’re not dead yet.’

  His pal replied, ‘Never mind, you gave them a hell of a fright.’

  These insects were a great pest, and I would counsel friends sending parcels to the soldiers to include a tin of insecticide; it was invaluable when it could be obtained.

  I got a fright myself one night. A lot of things were doing the Melbourne Cup inside my blanket. The horrible thought suggested itself that I had got ‘them’ too, but a light revealed the presence of fleas. These were very large able-bodied animals and became our constant companions at night-time; in fact one could only get to sleep after dosing the blanket with insecticide.

  LAMENT

  LANCE CORPORAL SAXON

  It ain’t the work and it ain’t the Turk

  That causes us to swear,

  It’s having to fight at dark midnight

  With the things in our underwear.

  They’re black and grey and brindle and white

  And red and big and small

  And they steeplechase around our knees

  And we cannot sleep at all.

  Today there’s a score, tomorrow lots more

  Of the rotters, it ain’t too nice

  To sit, skin bare in the morning air,

  Looking for blooming lice!

  ‘PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW’

  JOSEPH BEESTON

  No account of the war would be complete without some mention of the good work of the chaplains. They did their work nobly, and gave the greatest assistance to the bearers in getting the wounded down. I came into contact chiefly with those belonging to our own Brigade—Colonel Green, Colonel Wray, and Captain Gillitson, who was killed while trying to get to one of our men who had been wounded.

  Services were held whenever possible, and sometimes under very peculiar circumstances.

  Once a service was being conducted in the gully when a platoon was observed coming down the opposite hill in a position exposed to rifle fire. The thoughts of the audience were at once distracted from what the Padre was expounding by the risk the platoon was running; and members of the congregation pointed out the folly of such conduct, emphasising their remarks by all the adjectives in the Australian vocabulary.

  Suddenly a shell burst over the platoon and killed a few men. After the wounded had been cared for, the Padre regained the attention of his congregation and gave out the last verse of ‘Praise God from Whom all blessings flow’.

  There was one man for whom I had a great admiration—a clergyman in civil life but a stretcher-bearer on the Peninsula—Private Greig McGregor. He belonged to the 1st Field Ambulance, and I frequently saw him. He always had a stretcher, either carrying a man or going for one, and in his odd moments he cared for the graves of those who were buried on Hell Spit. The neatness of many of them was due to his kindly thought. He gained the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and richly deserved it.

  All the graves were looked after by the departed one’s chum. Each was adorned with the Corps’ emblems: thus the Artillery used shell caps, the Army Medical Corps a Red Cross in stone, etc.

  There were very few horses on the Peninsula, and those few belonged to the Artillery. But at the time I speak of we had one attached to the New Zealand and Australian Headquarters, to be used by the despatch rider.

  Anzac, the Headquarters of General Birdwood, was about two and a half miles away; and, being a true Australian, the despatch-carrier declined to walk when he could ride, so he rode every day with despatches. Part of the journey had to be made across a position open to fire from Walker’s Ridge.

  We used to watch for the man every day, and make bets whether he would be hit. Directly he entered the fire zone, he started as if he were riding in the Melbourne Cup, sitting low in the saddle, while the bullets kicked up dust all round him.

  One day the horse returned alone, and everyone thought the man had been hit at last; but in about an hour’s time he walked in. The saddle had slipped, and he came off and rolled into a sap, whence he made his way to us on foot.

  When going through the trenches it is not a disadvantage to be small of stature. It is not good form to put one’s head over the sandbags; the Turks invariably objected, and even entered their protest against periscopes, which are very small in size. Numbers of observers were cut about the face and a few lost their eyes through the mirror at the top being smashed by a bullet.

  On one occasion I was in a trench which the men were making deeper. A rise in the bottom of the trench just enabled me, by standing on it, to peer through the loophole.

  On commending the man for leaving this lump in the floor of the trench, he replied, ‘That’s a dead Turk, sir!’

  ARCADIA

  H.E. SHELL

  I’ve dwelt in many a town and shire from Cairns to Wangaratta;

  I’ve dropped into the Brisbane Show and Bundaberg Regatta,

  But now I’ve struck the ideal spot where pleasure never cloys,

  Just list’ to the advantages this choice retreat enjoys—

  The scenery is glorious, the sunsets are cyclonic;

  The atmosphere’s so full of iron, it acts as quite a tonic!

  No parsons ever preach the Word or take up a collection;

  While politicians don’t exist, nor any by-election.

  No scandal ever hovers here to sear our simple lives;

  And married men are always true to absent, loving wives.

  And should you doubt if there can be a spot which so excels,

  Let me whisper—it is ANZAC! Anzac by the Dardanelles.

  The next real development in the campaign occurred in August when a new invasion was undertaken at Suvla Bay to the north of Anzac. This force of some 15,000 men was to land at Suvla on 6 August and advance across a dry salt lake and hilly open plain toward the Anafurta Range, Hill 971 and Chunuk Bair, with a view to stretching a cordon across the peninsula and crumpling up the right wing of the Turkish army.

  Attacks by all forces on the peninsula were planned to divert Ottoman attention from the landing and enable this new force to become an important part of a pincer movement against the heights.

  These invasion forces were all newcomers to war and were young, poorly trained and poorly led. The command was given to Sir Frederick Stopford, who had been retired since 1909, was sixty-one years old, and had never commanded men in battle.

  Stopford never even went ashore. He stayed on the British sloop Jonquil while his invading force suffered casualties of 1700 men on shore. The number of British casualties was actually greater than the number of Turks opposing them.

  Whatever the reason—unclear orders, poor morale after a botched landing, heat and difficult terrain, heavy Turkish resistance, or simply poor and hesitant leadership—the forces that landed at Suvla Bay on 6 and 7 August failed to advance as expected.

  Meanwhile the Anzacs attacked according to plan. The Australians charged the Ottoman trenches at Lone Pine and captured them while the New Zealanders charged up Rhododendron Ridge and took Chunuk Bair. Due to a mis-timed artillery barrage and a failed attempt to capture the German Officers’ Trench and take out the Turkish machine guns, the Light Horse Brigade, fighting as infantry, charged into the face of machine-gun fire and died at the Nek.

  At Helles the 29th Division made yet another futile and tragic attack on Krithia.

  The forces at Suvla Bay, however, did not advance to achieve their objective and the plan failed.

  Allied losses all round were devastating. More than 2000 Australians died at Lone Pine alone. On the other side, losses were even worse; 7000 Ottoman troops died defending Lone Pine.

  Ottoman troops under Mustafa Kemal recaptured the heights from the New Zealanders and Ghurkas on 10 August. The Anzacs held Lone Pine until the evacuation, and the Allies effe
ctively held most of the Suvla Bay area and Anafurta Plains after another concerted push with reinforcements finally allowed the forces at Anzac to link up with the forces at Suvla on 27 August.

  LONE PINE

  WILLIAM BAYLEBRIDGE

  Of all those battles fought by our troops at Anzac, none was more fierce, and few were more bloody, than that waged at Lone Pine.

  Shut too long in their trenches, with little room to pass beyond them and taking death, night and day, from the shells the Turks hurled into their lines, our troops’ only desire was to be out and upon the move. Not only did Australian bayonets bring it through to a right end, but such things as were done there put Australian courage forever past doubt.

  Lone Pine stood against the centre of our line. It was high land and so strong was the Turks’ position there, both in defence-works and men, that any soldier, skilled in his trade, would have thought it impossible to be taken at all. The Turkish front trenches were roofed in with heavy logs, which were covered up with earth. Shelling, from our guns and ships, had little effect there.

  Machine-guns were set into the Turkish front line and room had been made there for snipers and for those who threw bombs out. In front of all these traps lay an ugly tangle of barbed wire. The open land further out was swept clean by rifle fire from both ends of the ridge, for the Turks controlled a dozen positions further north, and also many to the south. Turkish artillery had the accurate range of this country to a hair.

  On the afternoon of the sixth day of August, a great bombardment of shellfire, from our ships behind us and our batteries on land, was poured into the wire and the Turkish back trenches at Lone Pine. These back trenches were not covered up and great numbers of Turks had been gathered there to defend that position. Those back trenches were soon choked up with dead and wounded.

  While this was going on the Turkish gunners, shooting as often as they might, gave back something of what they got. With the roaring of guns, and the screech of that flying shell, there was little peace that afternoon. But then, all at once, our guns ceased firing and the charge was blown. Like hounds loosed from a leash, off raced our men: with bayonets fixed, up and over the parapet they leapt, and charged.

  That charge might well have stirred the blood in any man! Those men raced toward the enemy trenches, spat upon by rifle fire from every loophole, cut down by machine-guns, torn through by a rain of shrapnel, and not one hesitated. Thick they fell but they cared not. Believe me, it was not hard, later, to see the way they had gone, so heavy-sown it was with men dead.

  Thinned out, but with Australian hearts yet, those who could swept on, pushed through the twisted wire, and swarmed at last up the parapet of the Turks. Once up and on that parapet, did these Australians wait? No, they tore up the roof from those front trenches and leapt down into a darkness ripe with death.

  Then was there bloody work! In and home went their steel; it had a thirst in it for the blood of those Turks. Then did they fight like the men they were, now thrusting, now holding off, now twisting, now turning, now wrenching out their bayonets from this crush of flesh, now dropping down with their limbs shattered, with their bowels slit and torn out by the foe.

  Along through those trenches, dark and stinking, men fought hand to hand. Many, with clubbed rifle, spilt out the brains of others, trodden soon to mud on the floor there. Bombs, knives, whatever came next to hand, both foe and friend brought into use. The bombs, bursting in little room, did great hurt: many a press of tough men they tore up, limb away from limb, making a right sickening mess.

  Here and there the Turks got together in knots so that they might better hold out; but the steel of Australia ploughed a passage through those trenches. Little then did it help those Turks to know every corner, each turn and short cut, of that place; little then did their valour help them. As the two sides fought on in the heat and choking stench of that darkness, the dead lay thick under foot, here two-deep, three-deep there, and there four-deep.

  Now, you have heard how these men of Australia, that tore the roof up and off those trenches, got their part done. While all this was doing, there were others who took those Turks in the rear. These men had charged on over the roofed trenches and struck out for the trenches behind. Coming up to these trenches—filled now with the death our guns had dealt—they pushed in, and sealed up behind them the passages that linked the back trenches with the front lines, so that the Turks could by no means get out.

  Thus, taking the foe both in front and upon the rear, our steel drove them in and back upon themselves, and slew them like sheep in some accursed shambles. Too many of our own men as well were slain there! Neither friend nor foe escaped and the trenches were choked up with dead men and dying.

  So thick lay the dead that we later piled them to the height of a tall man, and had to prop them up behind logs, and hold them up out of the trench with ropes, so that one side of the passage might be kept clear. Never, surely, was there a battle fought more fiercely hand to hand!

  Our men, at last, got the better of those Turks. Those still alive and stirring, we drove up out of the ground and fell upon. Some we slew fighting; some, making off as they best might through the open, we caught with our machine-guns; some we pushed up into saps where they were glad to give over.

  As for their counter-attacks, the Turks made many, and in fine style; but, though these attacks cost us many good men, they cost the foe more, and were but lost labour.

  Three days and three nights this battle lasted. The loss upon our side was a hard loss—we buried above 2000 slain.

  As for the men who fought in this battle, all were infantry. There were men of the 1st Brigade in the first attack and, in the relief and making good the victory, men of the 2nd Brigade.

  THE GLORIOUS CHARGE

  OLIVER HOGUE

  Talk about the Charge of the Light Brigade! Well, all I’ve got to say is that this war will make us readjust the estimates of old-time battles and exploits. The capture of Lone Pine was a feat of arms that the Pretorian Guard or Cromwell’s Ironsides or Napoleon’s Old Guard would have gloried in having to their credit. We who watched were spellbound.

  The irregular khaki line charged with reckless indifference to the hail of shrapnel and rifle fire and machine-guns. A well-trained regiment of Gay Gordons or Grenadiers or Fusiliers would have charged in a beautiful line—and probably would have been mown down like wheat before the scythe. But our chaps don’t fight that way. They raced forward as individuals, not as a battalion. Each man’s initiative spurred him on to do deeds of valour with his own hand. But for this their casualties would have been far greater.

  We saw them falter just for a second—but it was only to hack the barbed wire out of their path. Then they jumped into the trenches and slaughtered the Turks with the bayonet. Oh, Honey, it was magnificent! It was War. Once again we Light Horsemen stand and salute and do honour to our comrades of the Infantry.

  When the heroic band reached the Turkish trenches they found them protected with overhead cover, pine logs and brushwood and earth, with only an opening here and there. But with magnificent daring our boys bayoneted the defenders, jumped down among the swarming Turks and plied the bayonet like demons.

  Then our supporting columns, dashing across the intervening hell, overran the first line of trenches, captured the second defence, captured or bayoneted the inmates, linked up with the storming party, and Lone Pine was ours . . . A hundred years hence the people of Australia will talk with bated breath of the glorious charge. Our 2nd Light Horse Brigade and the 2nd Infantry Brigade held the ridge against all the furious counter-attacks of the Turks, but it was the gallant 1sts who deserve the most of the glory.

  Note: Seven Victoria Crosses were won at Lone Pine.

  FALLEN COMRADES

  ANONYMOUS

  Halt! Thy foot is on heroes’ graves;

  Australian lads lie sleeping below;

  Just rough wooden crosses at their heads,

  To let their comrades know.
r />   They’d sleep no better for marble slabs,

  Or monuments so grand;

  They lie content, now their day is done,

  In that far-off Turkish land.

  The wild flowers are growing o’er them,

  The white heath blooms close by;

  The crickets chirp around them,

  Above, the free birds fly;

  Wild poppies thrive beside them,

  Their bloom is scarlet born—

  Red poppies—sleep-flowers, emblems

  Of that blood-red April morn.

  The blue sea seems a-sighing,

  In the morning air so clear,

  As though grieving o’er the fallen,

  Who never knew a fear.

  A lonesome pine stands near-by;

  A grim sentinel it stands,

  As though guarding the last resting-place

  Of that gallant little band.

  I’ve often passed those little mounds,

  And heard the bullets meow,

  When the air was full of shrapnel;

  ’Tis called Shrapnel Gully now.

  Whilst coming from the trenches

  And glancing over there,

  I’ve oft seen many a khaki form,

  Kneeling in silent prayer.

  Kneeling o’er fallen comrades,

  Perhaps their boyhood’s chums,

  Felled by the shrieking shrapnel

  Or the deadly snipers’ guns.

  They were only rough Australians,

  Fiends in the bayonet rush;

  But there, with their fallen comrades,

  They knelt in the evening’s hush.

  Their backs turned to the trenches—

  The first time to the foe—

  Their heads bent low in sorrow,