Guns of all sorts naval 12”, French 75s, British 18 pdr QF and Howitzers are blazing and blaze all day long, send some 30 shells every minute agst [against] the Turks. The batteries are close to us, so sleep was almost out of the question. I had a good wash and shave and then climbed a small hill nearby, and spent most of the day watching the battle. It is ideal fighting country, open undulating country. I could see our troops and the French advancing but not one of the Turks yet an incessant roll of rifle fire goes all day. Next to us is an Australian Bde, then there are Indian troops. We all take things as a matter of course, after our experience at Gaba Teppe [sic] this is a sham fight. Yet now and again we get shrapnel fired at us and an odd man gets hit.
By dark we had gained quite a lot of ground. Our artillery is immensely superior to that of the Turks. We turned in at 7pm, but the firing went on all night, at times furiously. It was a very cold night. We couldn’t sleep for it. The men got up and walked about to keep warm. I do wish we could get them some blankets – or rather get our blankets. The officers are in the same boat. I am not so badly off. I got a small blanket off a dead Turk, the other day, for a table cover, it is better than nothing.
Sketch map by Malone showing position at Krithia, May 1915.
Alexander Turnbull Library;
7th May 1915
The battle still raging. We are busy fixing up our Bivouacs. I have made mine quite snug per a stone wall, two boxes for side board etc and can now sit on the side of my bunk in the bank. Dog roses blooming all round me. The Brigadier Col F.E. Johnston called. I made him clean his boots! lending him my gear. We move I think this evening to N.W. to about the A in my sketch. We will then be behind the 29th Divn. The battle is going well, only about 250 casualties yesterday, which out of 40,000 is trivial.2 It is a relief to get in where war is being waged scientifically and where we are clear of the Australians. They seem to swarm about our lines like flies. I keep getting them sent out. They are like masterless men, going their own ways. I found one just now crawling like a big brown fly over my Bivouac. I straightened him up, not a bad lad either I believe, but a 10ft road was not good enough for him, he wanted to walk or climb on a 6” ledge – strange!! I sent off a note to Mater, by a man going to Alexandria, to give to Lt Col Charters3 to send when proper.
At about 4am we moved to sea cliff, westerly and then along cliff N.E. to a gully leading inland, in rear of the 29th Divn fighting line to reinforce that Divn. We were exposed to shrapnel, but fortunately suffered no loss. We were to remain at foot of gully for the night, and had made ourselves comfortable in bivouacs, when at about 9pm we were ordered to move up the gully to occupy trenches. We plodded along and by about 1am got settled down. A very cold night, and we feel the want of a blanket. Nobody growls, but we are getting well tried right enough. My HQ are alongside a white low stone hut which is frequently shelled by the Turks.
Malone and his bivouac at the reserve camp, Cape Helles, May 1915.
Malone Family Collection London
8th May 1915
Up early to see about rations. I found and took over a lot that had been sent up for a Lancashire Fusilier Bde that had been retired. I revelled in straightening up the cases of stores and taking stock. Bacon C/Beef [corned beef] (tinned), biscuits, iron rations, tea, sugar, salt, jam, some dried vegetables. It was a veritable godsend. If we had had to draw from the Base it would have been midday before we could have got supplied. We have no transport. Still in the Achaia. At 10.30am we were ordered to attack. We advanced under heavy shell and rifle fire, on a front of about 600 yards, Auckland and Canterbury Bns on our right. By about 4pm we had got forward about 1200 yds [yards] and within 200 to 400 yds of the Turk trenches. Owing to enfilade machine gun and rifle fire, we were unable to get further. We passed [thro deleted] over trenches held by 1st Inniskillings4 (2) Hants5 (3) Royal Fusiliers (4) Essex,6 Bns. We dug in. On our left were a detachment from Inniskillings and across the gully on our left, the S.W. [South Wales] Borderers. At 5.30 a general advance was ordered in a very airy fashion, by people behind who spoke about going right through and doing all sorts of wonderful things. But an attack of a line at less than 1 Rifle per yd, with the next line 200 yds to the rear and the next 300 yds and the next 500 yds is not war. We were all ordered to start at 5.30pm and did so. I pointed out to my Brigadier that until the Bns on my right, which were 300 yds in rear of the prolongation of our line came up, it was no good pushing my men forward. We had gone 300 yds in advance of any other troops and were hanging on to what we had gained. He said you must push on. Result, my right went forward about 150 yds more and then got badly cut up and stopped, a platoon of Essex, reached us, didn’t like the fire and went back. No other troops reached us, except about 10 Otago men and a few Auckland. So I am proud to say my men went further than any others and hung on and continued to hang on. The Auckland Bn I hear retired after being badly cut up, so my right flank is in the air. During the night we got out our casualties, estimated at about 30 killed and 120 wounded. [Inserted by WGM later] They turned out to be 50 killed 150 wounded. We got up rations and water but the men had a rough night, digging. No great coats – very cold. It was a warm sunny day. I came thro safely but had some four very narrow shaves. A shrapnel shell burst in front of me and several bullets rapped some timber close to my head on the right. I am somehow or other immune. I took Colonel Moore, Otago along to show him best way for 2 of his Coys to advance. A bullet passed between our heads and went right through the lobe of his ear. I must be more careful though as the loss of officers is getting very serious. I can’t do much good going ahead, but I do not like sitting at my Hd. Qrs with my telephone. Still I can control things better if I keep in my place. Deo Gratias.7
Malone in a reflective moment at his bivouac in the reserve camp, Cape Helles.
Malone Family Collection London
9th May 1915
We had a quiet night. A small Turk counter attack, which we easily settled. Their defence is very solid, trenches everywhere also machine guns. Evidently the Germans are organising things. Officers who were in Flanders say that bar the weather Flanders fighting is a picnic to this. The British and French losses have been very great and our progress is slow. Today is a lovely day. We are W.I.B. holding about 750 yds with about 500 men. I am asking for a full bn to be sent with 4 m/guns to fill up. It is dead against rules for 500 men to hold 750 yds, hastily made trenches. I don’t generally believe in asking for reinforcements, but my line must be closed in – which would be the proper thing – to about 200 yds. We are expected to go on advancing and I must have in my opinion at least 3 Rifles per yd. The French I hear are doing well on our right. Poor Menteath was killed yesterday – a splendid soldier. He lived through an inferno at Gaba Tepe Heights and I really thought he was immune. 200 reinforcements for my battalion arrived and these are our own from NZ. They will make up yesterdays casualties – 5 officers with them. Taylor [sic, Tayler] of Eltham and Hartnell of New Plymouth I know.8
Malone’s panorama of the Krithia battlefield, with the objectives – the village of Krithia and heights of Achi Baba – indicated in the sketch map in his diary on 7 May 1915 (see section entitled “9th May 1915”).
Malone Family Collection Wellington (now in ATL)
10th May 1915
I got 4 machine guns out of Genl Marshall9 yesterday pt [part?] Motor Maxim Squadron. At dusk I took them up the gully on our left to the left of our line, some 1200 yds ahead. We passed a Bn of Gurkhas (6th) who were relieving the S.W. Borderers, Sikhs 24th were relieving Inniskillings on our left. We got as far as we could with the mules, and I went ahead to find Lt Preston10 my m/gun O/C. The Turks opened up shrapnel and rifle fire, and things were very heavy for half an hour. As my orderly said it was a “lovely fusillade”. I handed the guns over and got back to HQ at 11pm. The Brigadier was wanting to know if I had relieved the Royal Fusiliers [RF]! I told him that unless I withdrew some of my men from the front I couldn’t. That as we were 1200 yds in front the RFs didn�
��t want any formal relief as they were only a moral support to my men.
I am not hitting it to well with our Brigadier. He seems to resent my asking for information and for not too readily allowing my men to be plunged ahead, without reconnaissance or information. I ask also for barbed wire, engineer detachments, the moving up of so called supporting troops, who are not in any touch whatever with me, and generally everything that can enable me and my men to do our job thoroughly. He says I am more bother to him than [all deleted] the three other C.O.s together. They say yes to everything, and seem to blunder along but I am not seeking popularity, only efficiency. [Deletion four lines of text – marked “deleted by me W.G.M.”]
We and the other troops have suffered tremendous losses because our directors [written over the word leaders] failed to quickly appreciate that this is the day of digging and machine guns, and that prepared positions cannot be rushed. The naval opening, shelling the forts was a huge mistake, it gave notice of Britain’s intentions, and the Turks had 6 weeks under thoro German officers to cover the Peninsula with trenches and to fix artillery and m/gun positions: with exact range to every approach. Had the operation begun by the landing of the army, then probably the rushing tactics now used would have succeeded, but now it is going to be sap, sap, dig, dig. The war of Flanders again. I expect every day to be told to in our Brigadier’s words “fix bayonets and go right through – no shilly shallying about, everybody going in.” If I do there is a 500 yard slope in front of me, over which my men must pass and it is absolutely commanded and enfiladed by a number of machine guns across a big gully.
11th May 1915
No advance by anybody. Men busy improving trenches. They are shelled intermittently but suffer very little loss. They keep down. I have been busy reconnoitring country to [the] right of my Bn lines, so as to fix certain Turkish trenches, which enfilade us more or less. I made an eye sketch of country right back to KRITHIA. On my travels I came across a lot of dead Turks – about 100 in two patches lying as they fell, mostly face downwards. They ought to be buried but it is not safe to send men to do so. Snipers are firing all day long at any body who goes out into the open. Strange to say, tho the Turks who have been killed some 14 days are really a horrible sight, I do not care to write the details. I and seemingly no one is horrified. I had a look for papers on several, so was as close as could be. I am going to try to get them buried. There is an odd New Zealander and Britisher among them men evidently sniped and killed crossing the ground. Our artillery support is not right. We get quite a number of our own shells in our trenches, and some times a naval big shell lands behind, but close to us or just in front. The Turks have got our range and shell us vigorously, but do really very little harm. We are getting home on the snipers but it is a difficult job. Our Brigadier has just ordered me to relieve the Essex [Bn]. I had to tell him that unless he wished me to withdraw men from the front trenches I could not do so. I asked why he didn’t send the Otago men who have been in reserve, and I then found that really the Auckland and Otago Bns are all to pieces. They have suffered horribly but are not the disciplined men that mine are, and thro’ this I believe their losses have been greatly increased. I always thought the Wellington Bn was easily the best in the Bde. I now know that it is. Both the Auckland and Otago Bns have gone back to put it in politely [sic] and their morale is all to pieces. Even Col M.[Moore] who commands the Otago Bn is quite shattered up, and not much good just now. An active service man of the Regular Army too. It will tone him down a bit. He had a cock sure, better than any Territorial CO who had not seen active service air about him that was somewhat annoying. The Wellington Inf Bn is the only one that is a working organized unit and we have lost 16 officer[s] and some 400 men. Revenons aux nos moutons.12 I suddenly thought of the reinforcements for my Bn who had arrived and could not while the Coys were in the firing line be incorporated with their respective companies, so I said to the Brigadier I could send them. He was quite pleased. It is not possible without loss to move troops by daylight so at dusk I sent the reinforcements along, but they got lost, as to some 100 of them and had to come back. I gave their officer a good talking too [sic]. Still night work is most difficult, and they were new chums.
12th May 1915
I made the reinforcements clean up. Oh the mess and litter of rifles, ammunition, equipment of all sorts. The country is littered. Then the rubbish tins and odds and ends of food, not to say filth. Ugh! A battlefield is a much littered and untidy thing. We have been having a hard job getting out and evacuating our wounded. Had it not been for my reinforcements, we could have done but little. Captain Home our RMO is a real good worker. He has had some 48 hours without rest or sleep, and has no assistant doctor. I have forgiven him his untidy ways, for the sterling work he has done. Our stretcher bearers, bandsmen, have worked heroically, going out under fire, by day and night, carrying in the wounded. I hope I shall be able to tell the people of NZ what grand fellows their soldier men are: nothing better in the world! The Imperial (Regular) officers and men are full of admiration and speak of the splendid advance made. It opened their eyes, they say they never saw anything better or finer. And it was good. My Bn advanced 1200 yds under shell, machine gun, rifle fire, crossed several trenches which must have been most tempting to stop in, kept their intervals and never fired a shot until they were within 200 to 400 yds of the Turkish trenches. They lost heavily, but advanced as tho they were on a parade ground. It was splendid. I never saw them do anything like it during their peace training. I used to growl and growl, but there was no room for any complaint. They were in dead open ground. The Tommies have christened my men the “White Ghurkas” [sic, Gurkhas].13 We are very proud of the sobriquet and mean to live up to it.
We are to be relieved tonight by the Manchester Brigade of English Territorials. Our men can do with a spell, it is impossible to light fires in the trenches so cooked meals are minus.
At 2.45pm I went to HQ across country, to the usual sniping accompaniment.
There is a line of trenches leading to it, but I can’t stand dodging along them. I did think the Brigadier could have given me full instructions on the phone. We are connected by it. Still it was all right. I met the Manchester Rgt officers and took a Col and 5 others back with me to prepare for the change over. At dusk it started. But it was 24 hours before finished. When we started to change, the Turks seemed to know what we were at and let us have shrapnel ad galore.14 Then we had to go to a strange bivouac close to where we were, when we landed. It came on to rain and in the dark we couldn’t find the turn in the so called road and got down to the beach. Pitch dark and raining cats and dogs, so we decided to stop and get what cover we could. We were among the stores, and transport. Stacks of ammn, boxes of stores etc etc gave some shelter. I found a little mimi [sic, maimai] of boards and sacks and felt and found only one man in, a beach worker I presumed, so started to crawl in as there seemed room for two. The inmate sat up. I asked “only one in here and room for me”. He said “one” and no more. So I crawled right in and lay down alongside him. He said not a word and seemed astonished. Presently Major Young outside got up against someone else, who in a tongue which I thought was Turkish raised a big talk. My man then chipped in. Turk, I said to myself. Presently he lay down and like a good Christian pushed a blanket over me. So what with a great coat, very small that I had picked up and the blanket, I was fairly comfortable, dry anyhow, and out of the rain. I got some sleep. On getting up, I found my bed fellow – the bed by the way being “mother earth” and a board or two on it, covered up in another blanket. So I crawled out without waking him. Outside I found an officer and told him what a Christian I had stuck and gave him 2/-to give to mine host. Just then he came out and to my astonishment, he was an Indian as black as the ace of spades! By name “Naring Sam” (Naran Sammey) [corrected name added later by WGM] a cooper in the Indian Army. I gave him the 2/- and my best thanks. A strange bed fellow right enough!! Still a clean and sweet one. I noticed he at once folded things up
and tidied up and I trudged off and finally found our bivouac proper a muddy filthy place it is. A most vicious wind. Rain it rained. My batman, young Okey and also Whitmore16 a sort of body attendant of mine, and the other orderlies, were very glad to see me. They had gone on with my gear and had prepared a bivvy for me, and were somewhat alarmed at my non arrival. I soon had some tea and then got to work in the rain fixing up a proper bivvy. I found the one I had used before, but a road had been driven thro it across the creek. I soon bunged the road up, with stone walls dug and scraped shaped and after some hours work was quite alright. We got very wet, but then was nothing else to do and I like a “HOME”. Col Richardson17 (NZ S [Staff] Corps)18 who is on General Paris’s19 staff, came to see me and asked me to dinner tonight.
13th May 1915
I enjoyed my dinner. Met General Paris and his son and several other officers who were all very nice to me. The dinner was a change too to our own rations. I was glad to turn in, and tho’ everything was rather wet, slept well. Today is hot and sunny and the mud and all wet things are drying up fast. I have spent the day drying clothes etc. The fight with the Turks goes on, all the same, but we hardly notice the sound of the big guns and rifles. Shells keep passing over us and arouse sometimes a little curiosity as to what damage they will do or have done, if we only notice the explosion. Yesterday the Brigadier sent for me to advise as to my Major Young taking command of the Auckland Bn. I naturally don’t want to lose my officers but the Wellington Inf Bn can run even if it does lose its officers. I recommended Young who has improved as a fighting soldier out of all knowledge. When Hart comes back he will get the Canterbury Bn, and so far as I can see, we will officer, in the higher commands, all the other Bns. We are proud of the fact, but still we begin to wonder how our own Bn will get on if our best are transferred. Young is to be made temporary Lt Col. Promotions are plentiful. I have just recommended 7 NCOs for comms [commissions] to fill vacancies in my Coys. A private now commands the machine gun section. Lieutenant Wilson and all NCOs have been killed or wounded. The section did splendid work. Young Preston is the new O/C, a 2nd Lt. He was astonished when I got him appointed. He is a good chap and only 23. He concentrates. We nearly got blown out of our quarters today by our own artillery. There is an English battery about 600 yards just behind us and they had 3 premature shell bursts, we got the pieces of shell and shrapnel bullets. I went down and told them they were very rude, and that if they shot us up any more we should have to shoot back! We expect Turkish shells to annoy us but expect our own to go over and not into us. Fortunately no one was hurt except an Indian. I ought to have said the Inniskillings, SW Borderers, Hants and Essex and Royal Fusiliers who were close to us here relieved by an Indian Brigade, 6 Gurkhas, 89 Punjabis and 2 other Regts. O/C General Cox who I met and liked. He dislikes disorder etc as much as I do.
No Better Death Page 19