I and Col Young went up to Walker’s Ridge and then on to No.3 outpost at extreme left flank and had as good a look at the country as we could. If, and a big if, the Maoris and Mounted Rifles do their job properly then unless we get lost, ours ought to come off all right. And if too the Otago and Canterbury people do theirs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wellington Battalion gets up alone the 1st and has to dig in and stick it out as at Walker’s Ridge and Krithia respectively. I am feeling very fit and the prospect of action is inspiriting. But I do feel that the preparation as regards our Brigade anyway is not thorough. The Brigadier will not get down to bed rock. He seems to think that a night attack and the taking of entrenched positions without artillery preparation is like “kissing ones hand”. Yesterday he burst forth “If there’s any hitch I shall go right up and take the place myself”. All as it were in a minute and on his own! He says “there’s to be no delay”. He is an extraordinary man. If it were not so serious it would be laughable. So far as I am concerned the men, my brave gallant men, shall have the best fighting chance I can give them or that can be got. No airy plunging and disregard of the rules and chances.
August 5th 1915
Col Stoddart took over at about 9am. Conference with Army Corps Commander in Rest Gully at 2.30pm. It is said that three new Divisions have landed and that the move is to be a big one. Apparently my plan of May last is to come off, in part anyway. But it is late now and it ought to be bigger and go as far as Mal Tepe.10 Keep the Turks on the run, if we can shift him!
[MSX 2553]
Quinn’s Post
2.8.15
My beloved.
This to begin my next letter. I am well and fit. Will you get a couple of copies of The Sphere of July 10th last and keep them for me. There is a double page picture of war position near Krithia and Achibaba [sic, Achi Baba], which is something like the facts, and as we (Wellington Bn) were in the Battle of 6, 7 and 8th May, it is and will be of special interest.
5.8.15
There has been no letter yet from you and it is not sure that tomorrow, when we expect the English mail to be in, that we shall be get at able [get-at-able] with the mail. I must finish this today. For there is a big move on and our NZ Inf Bde (including of course my Bn) takes an important part in it. We are all sanguine and expect to have a victory of such importance, that it will materially affect the whole position. By the time you get this it will be over and the result public. We shall have a lot of hard work. After this move I quite expect that our Brigade will be withdrawn for an absolute rest. The men are run down, 3 months fighting and work, big new strain[?], heavy casualties, not much rest, bring the best of men to a point, dangerously near that of breaking. I personally am not in need of a spell. I find I am one of the strongest men here and can stand anything. Always cool, calm and steady – most matter of course. I tell you this not out of boast, but to comfort you and prevent you from thinking me run down etc. As to the spell I shall most certainly welcome it because I think I shall be able to see you even if only for a short time. And that will be “Heaven”. You know the poetry, you quoted. That is one big handicap to the Gallipoli campaign. We can’t get off for weekends as do the officers and men in Flanders, and be able to run over to England, and then on longer spells of relief – stay there. Sweetheart I love you if it were possible, more and more than ever and do so long to be with you. You must not worry about me – if my letters don’t arrive regularly, you will know that it is either the post or our shifting about that causes the delay. I will always manage to write something. I have handed over the command of the Post to a Col Stoddart of the 2nd Australian Light Horse. In a way I am quite sorry to go. The Post is now one of the safest in the show, and I am very comfortable, everything going like clockwork. Still the feeling of the new move makes ones blood move quicker, and if I stayed here much longer I should be getting fat! Dear old Quinn’s Post – you have been and are most interesting and are a monument to my gallant men. I have begun to soliloquise and not write to you and that is rude is it not dear one. I wonder what we shall be doing – this day next week. We shall have I expect 2 or 3 days really hard work, and rough time – and then get settled into something regular again.
I hope that Terry is all right. I have not heard further of Edmond, but he will be right I am sure.
Your dear letter of 13th July just came to my very great delight. But I must go off instanter to a conf [conference] with Army Commander, at 2.30 and I have only time to get there.
I hope to write another note this evening.
With all my love
Yr lover x_____x_____x
Quinn’s Post
8.10pm 5/8/15
My Sweetheart,
In less than 2 Hours, we move off to a valley, where we will be up all night and tomorrow, in readiness for a big attack which will start tomorrow night. Everything promises well and victory should rest with us. God grant it so, and that our casualties will not be too heavy. I expect to go thro’ all right but, dear wife, if anything untoward happens to me, you must not grieve too much, there are our dear children to be brought up. You know how I love and have loved you, and we have had many years of great happiness together. If at any time in the past I seemed absorbed in “affairs” it was that I might make proper provision for you and the children. That was due from me. It is true that perhaps I overdid it somewhat. I believe now that I did, but did not see it at the time. I regret very much now, that it was so and that I lost more happiness than I need have done. You must forgive me. Forgive also anything unkindly or hard that I may have done, or said in the past.
I have made a will and it is at the office at Stratford. I think it was justly drawn, anyway I intended it so to be. I hope and think that the provision for you and the children will keep you and them in ease and comfort. I know that you will never forget me, or let the dear children do so.
I am prepared for death, and hope that God will have forgiven me all my sins.
My desire for life, so that I may see and be with you again, could not be greater, but I have only done what every man was bound to do in our country’s need. It has been a great consolation to me that you approved my action. The sacrifice was really yours. May you be consoled and rewarded by our dear Lord.
Your loving husband
W.G. MALONE
Quinn’s Post
5/8/15
[about 10. pm]
Sweetheart,
I sent a letter off this afternoon, just after receipt of your of your so welcome letter of 13th Ulto. We move out of this Post in about an hour, so I write a little in answer to your letter, as probably I shall not have time, about Saturday or Sunday, when our next mail generally closes. We are in for a big move and everything promises well. The attack starts tomorrow night. You will have heard all about it, long before you get this. It was lovely getting your letter today, because things will be up side down for the next few days and mail delivery will be out of the question. I am so sorry that you were so long without letters from me. You will have got a big batch long ere now. Yours come now weekly or oftener – so mine ought to reach you in same way.
Yes I do want you. I long and long and am beginning to lose my enjoyment of this life, as it entails separation from you. You are, in all my spare time, in my thoughts, and I do so look forward to our réunion. I do think much and have time to do so every night and day.
And so you would like to be my orderly, “batman”. You mean do you not? my body servant. The orderlies only run messages etc. Young Okey my batman from NZ to here is now with his Coy. My present man is a young English lad only 20, Smart,11 such nice boy and thorough in his work. But if you were my batman, you would get more than a “smile and a word”. Would you not want a kiss now and again? But dearie this is no place for women. You must wait until I rejoin you.
I do know all your feelings and I reciprocate them, but do not be sad. All will be well and our future life together will be all the sweeter and better for this separation.
&
nbsp; I am glad that Norah is enjoying herself at the Gaunts, in spite of the dog. I hope the Geo Vasey’s visit passed off all right. I was so sorry to hear of Mr Standish’s death and you did quite the right thing, as you always do, in writing to Mrs Standish as you did. And so “Bus” is coming to the war. He is not a bad chap. Give my regards to Miss Standish if occasion occurs. Major I. Standish12 is on the Peninsula. I saw him at near Cape Helles, with his Battery, the evening before we went into the Battle of Krithia. He had been fighting his battery all day. We had a good chat. He is such a fine fellow.
I too hope to see your cousin’s well ordered farm. It will be a great pleasure to visit him with you.
Yes we see newspapers, altho’ they are a bit old. Mr G.H. Schofield [sic, Scholefield] NZ Press Representative, London sends me regularly the Daily Mirror, and London Opinion.13 If you go to London, try and find him and give him my news.
Yes – more men and more munitions are wanted, right enough everywhere. Major Hart, who is in England wrote me that England will begin the war next summer! That people there are only now beginning to understand its magnitude and importance. Dear old England. She is a muddle right enough, but comes out all right in the end. And there is no country like her. If only we can knock a bit more thoroughness into her, as a matter of course it would help wonderfully.
My candle is all but burnt out and we will soon be moving. So good night, dearest one. With all my love.
Your lover and husband
x_____x_____x
Love to Norah and the little ones.
Postscript
August 5–8: Chunuk Bair
* * *
At 10.15pm, a few minutes after he had finished his last letter to Ida, Malone led the Wellington Battalion, which had a strength of 23 officers and 828 other ranks, out of Quinn’s Post. He had resumed command of the Battalion at mid-day on 5 August. Malone and his men marched to Happy Valley, a rest area, just north of Walker’s Ridge that was concealed from Turkish observation. Earlier the men of the battalion had sewn white bands on the arms and a white patch on the back of their jackets to aid identification during the forthcoming night attack. They had to wear their jackets inside out while they rested in Happy Valley with the rest of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade. The New Zealand troops were not permitted to light any fires and hid in the valley’s scrub to avoid detection by enemy reconnaissance aircraft.1 With typical foresight, Malone had called a meeting of the regimental fund committee at Quinn’s Post on 4 August and it had been agreed that £200 should be sent to Egypt to purchase comforts for the battalion’s wounded and that the fund’s books also be returned to Egypt for safekeeping. In the bloody aftermath of the August offensive, the fund, on which Malone placed such store, proved its worth helping wounded Wellington Battalion men to purchase essential personal items and small comforts.2
The Wellington Battalion and the rest of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade had been given a key role in the type of offensive to break the stalemate at Gallipoli that Malone and others had first considered in May. That Malone had appreciated after only a few weeks at Gallipoli that an offensive to the north represented the best and perhaps only way of breaking out of the beachhead demonstrates that he was a highly capable tactician. By August, even with the limited information available to him, Malone understood that such an operation was fraught with difficulties.3 The main elements of the plan put forward by Birdwood and his staff and then finalised by Hamilton’s headquarters and approved by him were:
Men prepare for the start of the offensive against the Sari Bair range. The white patches stitched to their sleeves and backs are to aid identification in the dark. This photograph was probably taken in Happy Valley, just north of Walker’s Ridge, late on 6 August 1915.
Laurie Smith Postcard Coll
The secret landing of substantial reinforcements (13th Division and 29th Indian Brigade) at Anzac Cove between 4 and 6 August.
Diversionary attacks at Helles and at Lone Pine in the southern part of the Anzac beachhead on 6 and 7 August.
The landing of two British divisions at Suvla Bay, North of the Anzac area, late on the 6 August and early on 7 August.
A ‘left hook’ launched from the Anzac area designed to seize the three key points on the Sari Bair range, Hill 971 (Koja Chemen Tepe), Hill Q and Chunuk Bair, which dominated the Anzac area. Possession of these high points would, it was thought, place the Allied forces in a good position to cut off the Turkish forces further south.
The forces involved in the offensive were organised into two attacking columns, each of which was to be assisted by a covering column. The Left Assaulting Column was commanded by Major-General H.V. Cox, and consisted of Monash’s 4th Australian Infantry Brigade and Cox’s 29th Indian Brigade. Its task was to move well to the north, advance up the Arghyl Dere valley and then to split into two parts to seize Hills 971 and Q. The left covering force consisted of two British infantry battalions and half a company of engineers, whose role was to clear the path of the assaulting column by seizing the lower ridges of the Sari Bair range. The Right Assaulting Column was commanded by Brigadier-General Francis Johnston and consisted of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, most of an Indian mountain battery and a field company of New Zealand engineers. Its task was to advance up the Chailik Dere and Sazli Dere valleys, then to assault and capture Chunuk Bair. Once the New Zealanders were firmly established on Chunuk Bair they were to attack the Turkish positions on Battleship Hill from the rear. The right covering force, under the command of Brigadier-General Andrew Russell was made up of the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade, the Otago Mounted Rifles, the Maori Contingent and a troop of New Zealand engineers. This force was to clear the way for Johnston’s column by seizing, in a silent night attack, the foothills blocking the assaulting column’s advance. The two assaulting column were to be in position to launch assaults on their final objectives at dawn on 7 August.
Major-General Godley was given command of this corps-sized force in what was bound to be a complicated and demanding operation. The small and inexperienced staff of his New Zealand and Australian Division was not capable of effectively directing the operations of Godley’s force. The plan for the offensive was dependent on the troops involved keeping to a tight timetable. Before the offensive, the ground over which it was to be launched, was reconnoitred as well as possible. It is, however, now clear that those responsible for planning the offensive failed to take proper account of the difficulties involved in moving large forces over extremely rugged and confusing ground at night. The plan also involved unrealistic expectations of the physical capabilities of officers and men exhausted by months of combat and riddled with dysentery and other diseases.4 The men of the Wellington Battalion were in the view of one man who survived the campaign, ‘only shadows of what they had been when they landed. Probably half of them ought to have been in hospital.’5 The strength of the Wellington Battalion’s esprit de corps is demonstrated by the fact that when news of the planned attack reached sick men resting on Lemnos, many asked to return to Gallipoli to take part in the operation.6 The situation of the Wellington Battalion was particularly serious because, unlike the other New Zealand infantry battalions, it had not had a short break on Lemnos and was committed to the offensive immediately after a strenuous period of work remodelling Quinn’s Post.7 Unlike the plan outlined by Malone in May, the planners of the August offensive, unfortunately, assigned key tasks to newly-arrived British units, which were fresh, but quite inexperienced.8
Part of a map from C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, Military Operations: Gallipoli, Vol. II, which shows the opposing lines at Anzac on 6 August 1915 and the objectives of the Allied offensive.
Johnston issued his final orders to Malone and the other battalion commanders while they waited at Happy Valley. Malone then convened a conference with his company commanders at which he issued and discussed with them his operations orders for the assault on Chunuk Bair. These orders set out the order in which the Battalion was to move off, stipu
lated that the head of the Battalion column had to be in the entrance to Otago Gully (near Outpost No.3) at 9.30pm on 6 August, and described the role each company would have in the attack. The orders also noted that the password for the night was ‘Godley’ and the countersign ‘success’.9 Malone would also almost certainly have taken this opportunity to brief his officers on the orders and instructions he and the other battalion commanders had received from brigade headquarters. These stressed the importance of speed and silence if the Brigade was to achieve its objectives, and noted the ‘supreme importance of strict punctuality and accurate timing’. The instructions specifically warned against straggling when the troops moved along communication trenches or up gullies, and noted that any straggling ‘must inevitably cause the troops in rear to be delayed and therefore not immediately available when wanted.’10 He also took the opportunity to attend to some personal matters, despatching his batman, Private Smart, back to Quinn’s Post to fetch his tunic and items for other officers.11 Malone may also have gone with other officers to Outposts No.2 and No.3 to study through binoculars the ground over which they were to attack. Malone had a few days earlier embarked in a destroyer to observe from the sea the territory leading up to Chunuk Bair.12
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