by Harry Askin
The weather changed again and on the Sunday it was just like summer. Terrible hot. We were served out with winter clothing. Jerkins, cardigan jackets and big waterproof capes.
Three monitors and the Swiftsure turned up on Sunday afternoon and bombarded behind Krithia. Some of the shells from the monitors, 12- or 14-inch, sounded just like express trains as they rushed through the air. They did kick some dust up behind the village. I felt bad all Monday and Tuesday but managed to drag myself to the battalion order board when someone told me I had been made lance corporal. I couldn’t believe it at first but didn’t feel very keen, only that it meant another 4d (1.5p) a day more, and that’s a consideration, especially if this silly war lasts many years. I reckoned my pay now to be about 1/9d (8.5p) a day. And 6d (2.5p) a day field allowance if it materialised.
Up at 5.00am Wednesday morning, everything to be ready for moving up the line by 9. We only went as far as Eski Lines, the general reserve trench. This was a strongly-built trench, stretching right across the peninsula from one coast to the other. Everything was ankle deep in mud and it rained every bit of the day. Nothing to do until 7.30 at night when we went digging a new trench.
Rations were poor and water was scarce, and when we got water we could find no wood or heather for a fire. I felt bad all Thursday and, after returning from a ration party to the front line, I turned in. And it started raining again, and raining harder than I’d ever known it rain before. It kept up for the best part of the night and washed everybody off the fire-step. We were all walking about until dawn knee deep in water and mud. I went scrounging down the gully later in the day and found enough wood to boil a canteen of tea and one of stew. Cutcher excused me rations at night, so I turned in early and felt heaps better on the Saturday. I had to go up to the battalion sergeant major’s dump at Marble Arch on the Saturday morning and on the way had a narrow escape. Three whizz-bangs came over and I bet none of them burst more than five yards from me. I got a move on then.
Heard at Brigade Dump that Kitchener had been on the peninsula and was very pleased with the troops. More heavy rain on Monday morning and I made things cheerful again.
Exactly at 3.00pm, two monitors sent over two heavy shells, two mines went up and part of 52nd Division advanced and took two lines of trenches in a place called the Vine Yard. All this with sixteen casualties, mostly wounded. The whole thing was an absolute surprise to the Turk and the Scotties were all over him before he knew there was a stunt on. All our guns opened up after that and gave the Turk no time to concentrate or re-organise for a counter-attack. This was kept up at full force for an hour and a half, but of course it wasn’t all one-sided. He had some guns and he used them. He shelled Goki Lines pretty heavily and our battalion had several casualties.
More thunder and rain at night and everybody was walking about like lumps of wet mud. I was caked from head to foot with the beastly stuff. We were working hard all Tuesday trying to clear the trenches of water, but there was nowhere to run it to. There was heavy fighting in the Vine Yard all night, but in his several counter-attacks the Turk never once got beyond his own wire.
Up and about by 5.30 Wednesday morning getting things ready for moving down. Most of the way down the CT we were over the knees in water. We drifted back to the same camp that we had left and found it in a state of flood. Most of the dugouts were dry, but the connecting trenches were a foot deep in water. We rigged our WP sheets over the dugouts in case the weather changed and we had some rain. Rain it did, and the water gradually came in through the trench and crept up round our feet as we lay down. It came in through the top and down the sides and we were jolly soon washed out and were walking about to keep warm. What a hole in winter! I wonder what happened to our iron sheets for the dug-outs? Somebody said that the ship that was bringing them out had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean. My section was down to five including myself.
We did nothing all Thursday but clear our dugouts and drains and try to make them a little more waterproof. We had no mail up that day. The sea was so rough in the night, it washed the pier away from W beach.
All the company went over to 1 FA on Friday to be fumigated, but when we got there they were unable to put us through. If we liked we could take all our clothes off and put them through the steaming arrangement. There they had to stop for thirty to forty minutes and in the meantime we were stood outside with absolutely nothing on and November too. Very few availed themselves of the generous offer, but were content to put in two blankets which we had taken with us.
Somebody who knew wrote an article about the winter in Gallipoli. ‘Usually,’ it said, ‘it is very mild, with some rain but very little snow. Not at all severe, but similar to those experienced in the South of France and Italy.’ We had already had some rain and over the way we can see the island of Samothraki with its great mountain, the top of which was already snow covered.
Three men were wounded in the camp on Saturday night by stray rifle bullets (Turkish) and two more on Sunday night, one of them being Corporal Daniels. For some reason, no doubt a good one for himself, he refused to leave the battalion and was content to put up with the crude attentions of our sick-bay. One chap in the next dugout was shot through the arm and another, a little farther away, through the nose. Those bullets must have come at least four miles. The Turks bombarded our trenches heavily on Sunday morning and followed it by an infantry attack which fizzled out at his own barbed wire. We heard on the Monday that they had lost about 800 men in that attack and gained nothing.
The Turks tried every day to get at two of our 6-inch guns just on the left of our camp, but usually managed to drop their shells amongst us. Up the line again on Wednesday 24 November. Our platoon was to work the Northern Barricade. The bombers under Corporal Grindy worked a catapult from there and sent over bombs. These were made on the beach, from jam tins, nails, bits of barbed wire and ammonal, with a six-second length of time fuse. Sometimes they worked alright and the bombs got over into the Turks’ trenches and sometimes they didn’t work. This was the case on the Thursday morning. I was in North Face, just opposite the little entrance to the Barricade, and had watched Grindy send over a few bombs. Captain Gowney was there, Cutcher was there (which was surprising) and Sergeant Major Chapman was there along with a few more. All at once there was a rush for the entrance. Cutcher got there first but fell over himself and Chapman dropped on top of him, completely blocking up the entrance. I heard a bomb go off in the barricade, but no one was hurt. It seems the bomb left the catapult but struck the parapet and instead of going over the top dropped back into our trench and exploded. There was a repetition of this about an hour after, only Cutcher wasn’t there. I think he’d gone to change. This time the bomb didn’t leave the catapult and no one noticed it but Holt, the bomber. He told Grindy, who just nipped the fuse with his fingers. No doubt he saved some lives by doing that. (Grindy afterwards received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for that bit of work.)
Company cooks were up the line with us this time with dixies and a good supply of wood, and all our tea and food was cooked for us. We were not allowed to light fires in the firing line.
The Turks were busy at night putting out wire and building a machine-gun emplacement. We had quite a lively night trying to hit a few. Two more chaps joined up with my section. Both ‘Birds’ – Houlet, a jailbird and Griggs, a Yank. Houlet fired at least 200 rounds at those Turks and all through his watches he kept calling to me, ‘Corporal, I can see a blurry Turk.’ It was no use telling him that what he could see were our own wire stakes. Everybody saw Turks advancing until they’d been up a few times. His last half hour up before ‘stand to’ he let off a yell and dropped off the step. He swore he was hit – and he could swear too – and he was hit. One of the other chaps, I think it was Jock Baird, had thrown a lump of shrapnel at him.
As soon as it got light the bombers got on to his emplacement and knocked it flat. He had rigged an artillery ranging flag up just opposite us and we had a good hour’s sp
ort shooting it to bits.
Down to Chelmsford Street in support at 1.30 pm. Had a most awful night, thunder and heavy rain and afterwards a wind storm that nearly blew us out of the trenches. Our capes came in jolly handy. They were the only means of shelter that we had. I was on patrol round the supports and up to the front line most of the night but I enjoyed the whole storm. I felt better than I had done for weeks, and trudging knee deep through the sloppy mud was no hardship.
Saturday was a decent day but awfully cold and about 8.00pm it commenced snowing and went at it hard until it was a foot deep; then it froze. No one could sleep at night, it was so bitterly cold and most of the fellows had to keep walking about to keep warm. It was awful for those on watch on the fire-step. We had to relieve them every twenty minutes, otherwise they would have been frozen stiff. I was on the same patrol again and when I reached the line found that none of the chaps could use their rifles. The oil on the bolts had frozen and locked the rifles. I expect Johnny was in the same plight, so it wouldn’t matter much.
Somebody said it had been fifty years since it snowed there before Christmas. It was freezing keen all Sunday and lots of our fellows went away with frostbite. One young lad in No.2 Platoon took off his shoes and stockings and started running up and down the trench in his bare feet. He was taken away that day and by the time he had got to Malta had lost both his feet.
Rations were very poor that time up the line. We got tea and stew, but it isn’t like being able to make your own tea. With that arrangement we only got tea twice a day; with our own method we always had a canteen on the go.
All supplies of water were frozen up except the engineers’ well in the gully, and that’s a nice old tramp. Up in Sap 9 again on Monday morning. I had a new chum now, Billy Hurrell from Woodhouse, and quite a decent chap. He was a first reinforcement and was badly wounded in the back in their stunt. He was now doing runner to old Cutcher. Charlie Hamilton was cooking for Cutcher and we all three got on jolly well together. There was always a drop of real tea ready and we often managed a decent feed out of old Cutcher’s rations. One or two shells were quite sufficient to put him past his meals.
Plenty of whizz-bangs on our trench and north face on Monday. The buzz came round that Turkey wanted peace, but it took a lot of swallowing. He had more guns by then than he ever had and was making good use of them. There wasn’t much actual fighting and we were pretty sick of things by Wednesday. The most interesting thing that happened was a Turk singing every morning from the trench opposite the Northern Barricade. He had a lovely voice. We used to give him a cheer when he’d finished, but he would never oblige with an encore. Bob Hacking, an Oldham fellow, obliged twice with a song in return but we never got any appreciation from Abdulla, as we named the Turk.
We were relieved on the Wednesday and went down to camp again and started the next day down on five hours digging. Most of the digging was done for the sake of keeping us occupied. Having lost or given away their cap-badges, most of the fellows drew a crossed pick and spade in blue pencil on their caps which led to a Divisional Order that ‘practice of disfiguring the uniform with indelible ink must cease forthwith’. A big bombardment started on 4 December on the left of the line, monitors, cruisers and destroyers taking part and about twenty land mines were exploded. Very little was done by the infantry, however and the whole thing died away about 5.00pm.
On work in the battalion area on Sunday, each man with a double task; dig 108 cubic feet in hard brittle clay. It was a most awful job, especially on the rations we had been having lately. Bread twice a week and then a pound loaf between five or six men, biscuits, and not many – five days – and fresh meat, three days. Even the apricot jam was being knocked off and some of the fellows were scrounging round trying to find some of the stuff we had slung away in the summer. Every day in the hot weather we got apricot jam, and every day we slung it as far as we could sling it. Sometimes it would run a pound tin per man. Now we were lucky to get one between the section three times a week.
I watched a curious experiment after tea on the 7th. Two destroyers were cruising about off Y beach and sending off clouds of thick black smoke. It looked almost solid as it left the funnels. This gradually drifted right across the peninsula and moved slowly towards Achi Baba until not a scrap of the hill could be seen. We heard that day that the next time up the line we were to take over the old July sector up Achi Baba nullah and relieve the French Senegalese troops who were leaving the peninsula. We went up on 10 December and our company stayed in supports. A small stream flowed down the nullah just by the right of our sector and over it the engineers had put a wooden bridge with a five-foot wall of sandbags towards the front line.
The firing line was similar too but the nullah was deeper there. There were still numbers of Turkish dead about, and in the stream just by was the hand of one, shot or cut off clean by the wrist. We used the stream for washing and sometimes for drinking and cooking. The Lord knows what came down it from the Turkish trenches.
A change for dinner on the Saturday – steak and chips cooked in butter. Real butter too, not marg. Billy and I went with Cutcher after dinner up to the front line to look over the sector we would occupy when we moved up. In places the line was only forty yards away from the Turk and bombing and listening saps had been run out so that the distance in some places was only about twenty yards. There was no wire, or not enough to deter a blind man.
The Turks were now sending over some heavy shells and shelling the rest camps again every day. It was getting quite like old times, except that his stuff was much heavier and hotter. The Asiatic guns appeared to have got a new lease of life and were warming things up on the beaches. I saw a decent fight in the air on Sunday.
A Taube came over our lines flying fairly low and we opened up on it with rifles and machine guns, but without any apparent success, then one of our planes came along and chased it away, finally bringing it down in flames. Got word along about eleven on Sunday morning that the Turkish support trenches were full of troops and that they were expected to attack at noon on our sector. Everybody wished they would come as we were all bored stiff. Nothing exciting seemed to happen these days.
The attack came off alright but not on our sector; the French had all the fun and glory, what bit there was. Exactly at noon the Turkish batteries opened up on the back areas and CTs and their infantry got out over the top. And that was the Turks’ share in that attack. Not one reached the French lines. The French were in readiness for them the same as we were and they opened up with rapid fire, machine guns, 75s and their big land torpedoes. Half an hour of incessant hammering and the Turkish attack fizzled completely out.
We got plenty of shrapnel after that, but I think everybody is more or less used to that now, under the cover of a trench, that is. Of course there are exceptions, Cutcher and ‘Kelly’ Clayton for two. We moved up to the front line at 3.00pm, when the stunt had just about died away, and our platoon took over a trench just on the left of the ‘Horseshoe’. We were in a funny position, only eighty yards from the Turk but with not a sight of his trench to our front or left. There was a dip just beyond our wire and the Turk was down there. However, we had a grand view up Achi Baba nullah and could see the whole front slope of the hill about 1,500 to 2,000 yards away.
Had a good bit of sport on Tuesday. Micky Ash was on watch in my bay and all at once he called to me that he had spotted a Turk moving about up the nullah. He put me on to the spot and I told him to fire and I’d watch the shot. It brought a big dog out of a trench about 300 yards away and after it had stretched itself it walked slowly up the nullah. Micky fired fourteen rounds at it and never even made it hurry. Just as it jumped into another trench, one of our shrapnels burst behind us and Micky fell off the fire-step. It was nothing serious, just a shrapnel ball on the head. It hit his cap first and made a good old bump but didn’t go inside. He went down to the doctor’s shop and we expected him back any time, but he never came. (I heard afterwards that complications se
t in and a dose of enteric at the same time and Micky Ash nearly went under.)
About an hour after that, I was looking out for something to snipe and spotted the dog in the same place. I fired about ten shots and only succeeded in making it jump once. I think I must have hit its tail. Others were firing at it too from the Horseshoe, but it dropped safely into its trench again. We hadn’t a shot in reply to all this from the Turk. I passed the time on spotting loopholes in the Turkish trenches and could always tell when I hit them by the metallic ring they gave off. No Turk took up my challenge, so after a time I got fed up with shooting at inanimate objects, and turned in for an hour’s nap.
Went down into reserve at 6.45pm and our platoon manned Port Arthur Redoubt. There were plenty of good places to turn in for a sleep but no chance. It was work from going in to getting out. We were working all night on Wednesday and from 4 to 6 in the morning I took two men (Kelly Clayton and a lad called Smith) down the approach trench and starting revetting the parapets. All the work was on top, the two men filling and carrying the sandbags from about a dozen yards away and I fixing them. We had been out about an hour and were getting on fine when I heard two yells and Clayton dashed up to me yelling ‘he’s hit’. He tripped over a sandbag and disappeared into the trench. I shouted to him to fetch the stretcher-bearers but he got up and set off for the redoubt as fast as he could go. I looked round for Smith and was just in time to stop him falling into the trench. A stray bullet from the line had got him through the knee, smashing the bone badly and, seeing Clayton dash in, he thought the Turks were on us and so tried to get into the trench. I dressed his wound as well as I could and, just as I was getting him fairly comfortable, Cutcher and Sergeant Douglas came along and soon after we got him away with the stretcher-bearers. (The lad lost his leg in hospital later.) Kelly got strafed by Cutcher and chaffed by the lads about the way he’d got the wind up. I could quite understand how he’d got all those bayonet wounds in his neck.