Gallipoli

by Peter Hart

  There seemed to be no organisation. The officers were all away on a reconnaissance and we found that it ended up with a whole stream of men going up the gully and the only thing to do was to carry on. We carried on up the gully being pushed from behind and we found it rather tough going. We soon got warm. There was a little water in the bottom of the gully but there was very sticky mud and this dragged on our feet so that a number didn’t seem able to keep up the pace that I was setting and I was forever urging them to hurry along. We passed streams of Australian wounded going down the gully and they were all urging us to go to this place, or that, as reinforcements were wanted. I think really what happened to the Auckland Battalion was that they went to a number of different places just as their inclination took them, but as far as I was concerned, I ended up far up on the left on Walker’s Ridge.36

  Sergeant R. H. Harris, Auckland Battalion, New Zealand Brigade, NZ&A Division, NZEF

  Just two companies made it on to Baby 700. Among these was a platoon led by Lieutenant Spencer Westmacott, who encountered a frantic Australian officer.

  ‘For God’s sake push on!’ he shouted as he came. I signalled my men to, ‘Halt – lie down!’ and the officer also stopped, panting. I sat down and he did, too. It seemed no place to stand about. He sat there, beating the ground with his hand, his breath coming in great gasps. When he recovered a bit I said, ‘Now, what’s the matter?’ ‘For God’s sake push on!’ he replied. ‘They are getting hell in front and I am going back for reinforcements!’ This between gasps. ‘All right,’ I said.37

  Lieutenant Spencer Westmacott, Auckland Battalion, New Zealand Brigade, NZ & A Division, NZEF

  The image of panicking Australians and imperturbable New Zealanders is overdone, for when Westmacott arrived forward he was horrified at what he found.

  Their firing line had almost ceased to exist. There was no trench. Lying on the forward slope without protective cover, every man there had been killed or wounded. They had fought on there, unsupported, rather than retire, and I saw at once that the same fate awaited me and the few of my men who had got so far forward. We could not retire, of course, nor could we advance until reinforced. Nothing remained but to stay where we were and hope something would happen to ease the pressure on us. What could happen we weren’t quite sure.38

  Lieutenant Spencer Westmacott, Auckland Battalion, New Zealand Brigade, NZ&A Division, NZEF

  The troops, whether they were Australians or New Zealanders, had little idea of what was going on around them. The ANZAC Corps was facing an invisible enemy that punched hard while giving little opportunity for retaliation. This was especially the case on 400 Plateau.

  The officer ordered a bayonet charge – we lined the ridge, and with a shout doubled over it in a long line, expecting to find the enemy at close quarters. We were now in a scrub-covered plain, fairly in the open. No Turks were to be seen, but the air was literally full of bullets and the sound was deafening. The point-blank explosion of rifles and the concealed snipers firing on us at close quarters. The bayonet charge had failed, and the men became disorganised: some ran about distractedly, poking in the bushes for Turks; others fell on their faces, rendered nerve-racked by the terrible fire. I ran forward into a slight depression in the ground, where several men were lying, and found myself beside one of my Mena tent mates. Some of the men were wounded, others dead. Still no Turks were to be seen and there was no target for our rifles. Some fired a few shots aimlessly into space, but were warned that they might easily be firing on their own men; others were hit in attempting to assume the firing position.39

  Lance Corporal Eric Moorhead, 5th (Victoria) Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF

  The capture of Baby 700 allowed the Turks to dominate both First and Second Ridges. Indeed, if the Turks had broken through The Nek and on to Russell’s Top then the whole of the ANZAC Corps position would have been fatally undermined. Lieutenant Robert Cowey was with one of the small parties that fell back from Mortar Ridge on to Second Ridge.

  Our casualties were very heavy and included two out of the three officers present. Ammunition ran short. We began to wonder if there were other than enemy troops left on the Peninsula, for we had seen none of our force. Towards evening the few survivors of our party straggled back to the head of Monash Valley, leaving too many good friends lying dead. Things were better here until the Turks again connected with us. We had a short respite during which to look at and think about things. We could now look down that long valley which led to the sea and the ships – and in those ships was safety. To stay seemed to make certain of death, of oblivion, of the loss of all those earthly things one had looked forward to. But to cede our position to the Turks meant that no living thing could enter that valley without being shot to death. We appeared to be occupying a key position. To leave it surely meant the loss of the whole enterprise. We stayed.40

  Lieutenant Robert Cowey, 3rd (New South Wales) Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division, AIF

  Throughout the fighting on 25 April the Anzacs desperately needed artillery support, but they found it extremely difficult to organise the disembarkation of the guns and locate feasible gun positions in the minute bridgehead. Colonel Joseph Talbot Hobbs, the divisional artillery commander, went ashore and climbed up on to Plugge’s Plateau in search of suitable gun positions for his flat trajectory 18-pounders. It was to prove a fruitless task.

  The enemy resistance began to stiffen all along the line, and his counter-attacks commenced. Worse still, his artillery, now in considerable force, opened a most galling fire from various dominating positions and as the afternoon wore on his fire, controlled from close observation, became murderous. From late in the afternoon urgent and repeated requests had been made to the ships for more guns and hours were spent in patrolling the beach to receive them. None, however, arrived. Looking backwards, I confess I was terribly worried and bitterly disappointed at the inability of the Divisional Artillery, through no fault of its own, to give the infantry the assistance and support to which it was entitled. In the first place it was most difficult – nay, almost impossible – to find suitable gun positions and very difficult to get guns up the steep and rugged hillsides to them.41

  Colonel Joseph Talbot Hobbs, Headquarters, AIF

  They managed to get the 26th Indian Mounted Battery ashore and into action supporting the troops on 400 Plateau by about noon. The Indian gunners performed sterling work but their positions were cripplingly exposed and they were eventually forced back to the beach area.

  As the Australians tried to scratch out trenches they suffered numerous casualties, but getting the wounded back to the beach was a dangerous task.

  A lad got a smack in the thigh, and I managed to get it dressed, and with him gripping on to my boots I dragged myself along to the slope of the hill on my stomach and then was going to give him a roll down the side and chance what happened, when we saw the gun that was firing at us. Next thing I knew was that the lad had some more wounds. That put the wind up us properly, and we absolutely fell down the side of the hill to safety. I came through with a few torn clothes and a few scratches, but my man was not so well off; he had fallen into a small stream in the valley and was knee-deep in mud. After much struggling we managed to land him, my mate secured a stretcher, we dressed his wounds and made for the Casualty Clearing Station. Everything went well until we were nearly at the beach, near the mouth of Shrapnel Gully, when shrapnel began to burst all round us, and just as we rounded a corner one burst over us, one piece passing between my mate’s back and the wounded man’s head, and another piece just missing the side of the stretcher. We moved on more quickly and were turning round the next corner when we heard another shell coming. We dropped down to the ground, stretcher and all, and the shell buried itself in the soft earth not six feet away from us. Fortunately it was a dud and did not burst.42

  Private Vincent Williams, 9th (Queensland) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF

  A casualty clearing station had been e
stablished in the lea of Hell Spit at the south end of Anzac Cove. But even here no one was safe.

  The beach here was not wider than a cricket pitch and was crowded with wounded, waiting to be evacuated by lighters. Colonel Howse and his officers were working hard, and we joined them. Although we had been told to conserve our water supply, our water-bottles were soon empty. It was impossible to turn a deaf ear to the cry of the badly wounded men for ‘A drop of water, mate!’ Every minute the numbers of wounded increased; newcomers staggering down the hillside, or being carried there by their mates. Shrapnel burst incessantly over us, but the cliff gave comparative shelter. Many of the wounded, however, were hit a second time as they lay on the beach and one fine Australian whom I was dressing received a bullet through his knee. He said angrily, ‘I’ve been hit once **** you Turks! Can’t you leave a chap alone!’43

  Lieutenant Colonel Percival Fenwick, Headquarters, NZ&A Division, NZEF

  The casualty evacuation arrangements were dangerously haphazard and the wounded had a world of pain and danger to endure before they were delivered safely aboard the hospital ships. Midshipman Edwin Clark of the Prince of Wales was in charge of a pinnace.

  We were towed in by a picket boat, she slipped us and I ran on the beach. Our bows were very high so we bagged a plank and lashed it on as a gangway. The Australians staggered up the wobbly plank and they were too dizzy to know what they did with their rifles which they used as crutches. One did go off and I narrowly escaped being shot. The stretcher cases were easier, but we couldn’t make them comfortable and it must have been agony for them when we shoved off, dragging along the rocky bottom. It was terrible having to refuse so many wounded lying there who begged to be taken. If there had been a landing place we could have taken a lot more, but we could only just shove off as it was. The picket boat which had towed us in had gone off and I had only two men to pull, so we made fast to a lighter which was at a buoy not far off and tried to attract the attention of a steamboat. At last we got the Bacchante’s steamboat to give us a tow. The shrapnel burst in the water round us, but did us no harm.44

  Midshipman Edwin Clark, HMS Prince of Wales

  It was at this point that the failure to judge correctly the likely number of casualties took effect. There were just two hospital ships for all the landings that were to take place on 25 April. Even when the wounded were got aboard a ship at either Anzac or Helles it was often a makeshift arrangement: filthy dirty, remarkably overcrowded, with nowhere near enough doctors or medical orderlies, a shortage of medical supplies and few beds. Then there was the voyage of 600 miles with little or no treatment before they could get to Alexandria. One such temporary hospital ship was the Dongola.

  All they had on was either nothing, or a first field dressing. Everybody had to do a job of work. Two naval doctors and a parson came to us from a boat that had been sunk and my C.O. told me to go and help them. We put up a couple of sheets to block off a companionway, got a table and that’s where we did our operations. The padre and I acted as anaesthetists. All we had to do was to put the mask over their face and using the chloroform drop bottle, just keep dropping, dropping and when the doctor said stop we stopped! We did smaller things, nothing very serious. I hadn’t had any training except my first aid in the Scouts! I saw a man who had a bullet wound through his upper thigh straight through his scrotum which it tore and out through the left thigh and it didn’t touch an artery, a bone or his testicles. The doctor cleaned right through the wound, tied him all up, and he said, ‘What a marvellous thing.’ The only thing was that he had wiped the inside of his scrotum with iodine and he said, ‘That’ll sting him when he comes round!’45

  Bugler John Ford, 15th Stationary Hospital, Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC)

  The wounded suffered dreadful privations and many who might have survived succumbed to the effects of gangrene or suppurating wounds before they got to a proper hospital in Egypt.

  The beach was not only flooded with the wounded but also with an increasing number of leaderless men who had drifted back. Private Charles Duke was among them, although in his case he had badly sprained his ankle and had been ordered back by his officer.

  It was getting dusk and conditions on that narrow over-crowded strip, owing to the influx of wounded, seemed to be chaotic. In addition to the hundreds of wounded there were many whose duty it was to be there, but I also quickly noticed there were many stragglers – some perhaps who had used the excuse of helping a wounded cobber down or for other less legitimate reasons had just faded from the firing line. In the disorder they had become detached from their own officer and nobody worried about them. It was so much easier to lie doggo in a possie on the beach than to go back and face the hellish music that was being played on those hilltops. A shell burst just above us – already over-strained nerves reacted and I remember muttered relief being gained by a chap at my side, ‘I wish I had the motherless bastard of a Turk who sent that **** shell over!’ Just what he would have done to him was entirely unprintable!46

  Private Charles Duke, 4th (New South Wales) Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division, AIF

  Not all were guilty of dereliction of duty, but some were very close to malingering. There were as many as a thousand soldiers milling on the beach and at 17.50 Major General Bridges was forced to accelerate the landing of the 4th Brigade from the NZ&A Division to help bolster his front. As the reinforcing battalions of 4th Brigade came ashore they were funnelled into the lines at random, more in response to the immediate concerns real or imagined, of local commanders than in any concerted tactical initiative to take control of the battlefield. Among the 16th Battalion were Lance Corporal Percy Black and Private Harry Murray of the Vickers machine gun section. This was to be the first experience in battle for these legendary soldiers; men who would come to define much of the popular image of the Australians in the Great War.

  At last the order came to move. It ran through all ranks like an electric impulse. There was an instant movement. Forward! Colonel Pope led the way up Shrapnel Gully and when we reached Monash Valley we received the welcome order to ‘Dump packs!’ No questioning that order – they weighed 60 to 70lbs apiece. It was now nearly dark. We proceeded up Monash Valley to where it forked and climbed a steep hill afterwards christened Pope’s Hill. The continuous flashing of rifle fire came into sight. No shells now, but those snapping rifles kept up a frightful din, the air being simply saturated with noise. Near the top we halted. There was some confused shouting and a few shots in front, and then a sharp order to man the hilltop and open fire. A rather serious blunder had been made – the Turks having been mistaken for Indian troops – Colonel Pope, the adjutant, another officer and a man were captured, but the colonel escaped by knocking his would-be captors down, throwing himself over the steep edge of the hill and rolling back to his men! We rushed forward, scrambling, slipping and falling, till we reached the top, a plateau, and now, at last, our long bottled-up impatience found vent, as we poured out a tremendous fire into the blackness ahead. The enemy response soon died down, while our own slackened to a steady, controlled effort. Percy Black mounted his gun on the extreme left of the hill, the other gun being placed about a hundred yards to the right. It was impossible just then to see what field of fire we had, but we were all ‘set’ and began to dig in like fury. The long night dragged on and for me it was a very cold one as, owing to my plunge into the sea, I was still very wet from feet to waist, and I felt absolutely numb.47

  Private Harry Murray, 16th (Western Australia and South Australia) Battalion, 4th Brigade, NZ&A Division, AIF

  Behind them elements of the Wellington Battalion had landed. Its gruff commander, Lieutenant Colonel William Malone, was shocked by the chaos that lay before them.

  There didn’t seem much organisation on the shore, in fact it was disorganisation. We evidently haven’t got a Kitchener about. On paper it was all right, but in practice no good. Still Britishers always muddle through somehow or another. The ‘Heads’ like General Birdwoo
d and Godley plan all right, but the executive officers in the main are no good – have no idea of order, method, etc. They as I put it ‘hang up everything on the ground’.48

  Lieutenant Colonel William Malone, Wellington Battalion, New Zealand Brigade, NZ&A Division, NZEF

  As night fell it became evident that those ‘heads’ were, quite rightly, worried as to the tenability of the bridgehead. The key to holding the position was, as Kemal had grasped so adroitly, gaining the high ground. The Turks had pressed right down from Chunuk Bair and had only just been held at The Nek.

  Birdwood had been ashore late in the day and made a reconnaissance. Although he noticed the presence of stragglers, all claiming to be the last survivors of their units, he considered the situation still fairly satisfactory when he returned aboard the Queen.