No Better Death

by John Crawford

  Harston’s account is supported by other survivors of the battle for Chunuk Bair. It seems clear that Malone ordered two of his companies to occupy and expand the existing Turkish trenches on the crest of the ridge and the other two to dig a new support trench on the reverse slope. The two companies on the reverse slope were ordered to dig saps forward to connect the two trench lines, which were about 30 metres apart. The crest of Chunuk Bair was made up of extremely hard clay that made digging trenches a very slow and difficult proposition. A covering force of about 80 men was sent down the forward slope to establish outposts in and around the Turkish howitzer emplacements. Its task was to prevent the Turks from surprising the troops digging in on the crest. These dispositions were sound and demonstrate Malone’s tactical competence.45

  The trench (left) on Chunuk Bair reached by the New Zealanders, photographed early in 1919.

  Australian War Memorial

  Dawn was at 4.30am, and half an hour later a haze that had concealed the capture of Chunuk Bair from the Turkish troops on Hill Q lifted. The Turkish response was immediate and deadly. Increasingly heavy rifle, machine gun and artillery fire swept over Chunuk Bair and the saddle leading to the Apex. The two leading companies of the 7th Gloucesters had by this time already crossed the saddle and had been ordered by Malone to deploy to the left (or north) of the Wellington Battalion and to extend the trenches the New Zealanders were digging. Their rear companies were caught by the Turkish fire crossing the saddle and suffered heavily. The 8th Welsh Pioneers were following the Gloucesters and lost most of their officers and men before they reached Chunuk Bair. They and some of the Gloucesters took up a position to the right (or south) of the Wellingtons.46 The grievous losses inflicted on these units crossing the saddle clearly indicates how well the various Turkish positions could support each other and suggests that the size of the Turkish garrison holding Chunuk Bair on 7 August is not as an important an issue as some historians have claimed. The Turkish troops on Hill Q, which is slightly higher than Chunuk Bair, had a very good ‘field of fire not only along the crest but also along the forward slope and over a considerable part of the reverse slope’. They were able to enfilade (fire down the length of) the old Turkish trenches and were able to inflict severe casualties on New Zealanders occupying them.47 Fortunately some elements of the Wellington Battalion were sheltered from this fire ‘by a small rise in the ground.’ Although the Allied troops on Chunuk Bair may well have received fire from Battleship Hill, it seems clear that it was the fire from Hill Q that was by far the most damaging. The slight rise that afforded Malone’s men some cover was, it appears, destroyed after the First World War; probably by earthworks associated with the construction of the New Zealand Memorial.48

  This sketch map from the Official History of the Wellington Mounted Rifles by A.H. Wilkie shows the positions held by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles and the Otago Battalion on 8–9 August. The troops under Malone’s command essentially occupied the same positions earlier on 8 August, after the Turkish forces had overrun the covering force and driven the New Zealanders out of the Turkish trenches on the crest of Chunuk Bair. The Wellington Battalion was in the middle the line with two companies of the 7th Gloucesters on the left and a mixed group from the 7th Gloucesters and 8th Welsh Pioneers on the right. During Malone’s period of command on Chunuk Bair, it appears that the right rather than the left flank of the Allied line was bent back; although it is possible that both flanks were in fact bent back during the earlier fighting.

  A small element of the Right Assaulting Column, led by the 1/6th Gurkhas commanded by Major C.J.L. Allanson, attacked Hill Q on 8 August and in a skilful and determined operation eventually succeeded getting to within about 30 metres of the crest. The following day they briefly captured Hill Q, but were then driven off the crest. The other elements of the column achieved very little.49

  Men of the 7th Gloucesters advancing from the Apex towards Chunuk Bair, 8 August 1915.

  Hampton Coll, National Army Museum

  At about 6am the Turks launched the first of a series of strong counterattacks. In severe fighting, the Wellington Battalion’s covering force was practically annihilated after inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. A body of enemy troops also appeared along the ridge to the right and opened an enfilading fire on the Allied troops who were desperately trying to dig in. The trenches held by the New Zealanders were only between half and three quarters of a metre deep and provided very limited protection. The Turks then began to apply increasing pressure on the main forward slope line. They made extensive use of hand grenades, many of which were picked up by Malone’s men and thrown back at the Turks before they could explode. The Turks attacked in dense masses. Charles Lepper, one of Malone’s men, later wrote, ‘we shot them down in fine style, like shooting at a haystack.’ Dead and wounded men covered the forward slope of Chunuk Bair; the Wellington’s trench became choked with casualties and was eventually overrun. Turkish soldiers then proceeded to kill most of the wounded New Zealanders they found there.50 The Turkish attack on the forward slope trench line led to some panic amongst the 8th Welsh Pioneers and the 7th Gloucesters on the right of the line and they retreated from the crest and sheltered on the reverse slope. This withdrawal enabled the Turks to more effectively enfilade the New Zealanders from the right, and also nearly caused a panic amongst Malone’s men. The New Zealanders on the right of the line bent back so that they could, at least to a certain extent, cover the flank exposed by the flight of the British troops. It appears that after the initial Turkish counter-attack fewer than 100 men from the Gloucesters and the Welsh Pioneers were in the firing line. Throughout the day it was the Wellington Battalion that carried the main burden of the defence of Chunuk Bair. Such was the intensity of the fighting that by 7am more than half of the Wellington Battalion’s officers had either been killed and wounded.51

  These sketch maps were drawn by Major Cunningham in February 1916. The top sketch shows the position of Malone’s force before the first Turkish counterattack, and the bottom sketch the position after the attack had led the British troops on the right flank of the New Zealanders to abandon their positions.

  Alexander Turnbull Library

  Malone and his small headquarters staff occupied a little trench just behind the main Wellington Battalion line on the reverse slope. He encouraged his men and calmly directed the defence of the hill. Throughout the day he was to demonstrate courage of the highest order. After they had seized the forward trench line, the Turks bombarded the remaining Allied positions on Chunuk Bair and then launched a series of attacks, which were preceded by showers of hand grenades. As agreed once Chunuk Bair had been seized, Wallingford ordered forward four machine gun teams, two each from the Wellington and Auckland Battalions. Only three gun teams advanced, because the commander of one gun claimed that he had not understood the order. It was now daylight and the machine gunners were met by a storm of Turkish fire as they advanced towards Chunuk Bair. Only one gun and its team reached Malone’s position. The machine gun captured during the initial advance may also have been brought into service. The Turks concentrated their fire on the New Zealand machine guns, and by 10am all the New Zealand machine gunners had become casualties and their guns damaged and put out of action. It has been suggested that the decision to delay sending the heavily-laden machine gunners forward until Chunuk Bair had been seized seriously compromised the defence of the position. That the machine guns on Chunuk Bair had to be placed in quite exposed positions and were quickly knocked out by the Turks suggests that the emplacement of additional machine guns would not have made a significant difference to the course of the fighting.52 During the day the Wellington Battalion carried out several bayonet charges to clear the crest of the hill. On at least two occasions, when the situation was particularly critical, Malone personally led these attacks. Major W.H. Hastings, who had attached himself to the Wellington Battalion headquarters after he had become separated from his unit, later recalled how he and Malone �
��joined the lads in front ... I had my revolver and a handful of cartridges and Col M[alone] seized up a rifle and bayonet as he went. The Wellingtons seemed to rise up each time from nowhere, and the Turks were hurled back; in the first of these attacks the bayonet on Col M[alone]’s rifle was twisted by a bullet, ... after this he kept it with him, as he said it was lucky.’53 Half a century later a Wellington Battalion veteran Daniel Curham recalled how Malone ‘was here and there, everywhere encouraging the troops, exposing himself to the enemy fire and showing tremendous courage.’54

  It was a very hot day and supplies of water and ammunition soon began to run low. Efforts to carry supplies forward from Apex, which was itself subject to intense Turkish fire met with little success. Private Smart, Malone’s batman, who had remained at the Apex, as part of the battalion’s 46-strong rear party, was a member of a group of volunteers who tried to carry ammunition forward, but had to abandon the effort after lying under fire for three hours.55

  There was no telephone line between Chunuk Bair and the brigade headquarters at the Apex, and Malone had to send messages back with wounded men. He could not be sure if these messages were getting through, so later in the morning (probably sometime after 8am) he ordered Harston to return to the Apex and report on the situation to brigade headquarters. Harston found a signaller with a telephone on the saddle leading back to the Apex and used this to communicate with brigade headquarters. He had great difficulty convincing Johnston and Temperley that the situation on Chunuk Bair was critical and that the Wellington Battalion had already suffered catastrophic losses. Eventually he managed to do this and it was arranged that reinforcements would be sent up to Chunuk Bair. He also explained, before returning to Malone’s headquarters, that fire from supporting warships was hitting the Allied troops on Chunuk Bair and as a result this fire was directed further inland.56 Reinforcements in the form of a party from the Auckland Mounted Rifles succeeded at great cost in reaching Chunuk Bair in the early afternoon, but their experience made it clear that it would only be possible to move substantial reinforcements up to the hill after nightfall.57

  By the afternoon, Chunuk Bair was an absolute charnel house, defenders used the bodies of fallen comrades or enemy soldiers for cover and fought on in a daze, losing all track of time.58 Between about 2.30pm and 5.30pm the hard-pressed defenders of Chunuk Bair were subjected to a heavy bombardment by the Turks. During this time friendly artillery fire also inflicted many casualties. Artillery fire both from warships and from guns within the Anzac perimeter played a vital role in defeating the Turkish efforts to recapture Chunuk Bair. Unfortunately, as was to be expected in fighting at such close quarters, many Allied shells fell amongst the defenders. At about 5pm a shell burst above the Wellington Battalion’s headquarters trench, ‘swish! swish! came the shrapnel and all except two in our little trench were killed or wounded’.59 Malone was killed by one or two shrapnel balls that hit him in the head and he collapsed into the arms of either Cunningham or Harston.60 Although the official history of the Wellington Regiment states that Malone was killed by Turkish artillery fire,61 there is good evidence that he was killed by friendly gunfire, either from a Royal Navy destroyer as Harston believed62 or by New Zealand artillery as Christopher Pugsley has concluded.63 Not long before he was killed, Malone had received Holy Communion from Father McMenamin.64

  Soon after Malone’s death, Major Cunningham was wounded and command of the battalion passed from him to Captain Harston. Around dusk, the intensity of the enemy fire diminished and after nightfall reinforcements arrived: the Otago Battalion and two squadrons of the Wellington Mounted Rifles, a total of 583 men. Johnston intended that these men reinforce, but not relieve the troops on Chunuk Bair, but the terrible state of the defenders, who had survived a hellish day, demanded that they be withdrawn. Johnston’s report on the struggle for Chunuk Bair and the brigade war diary, both of which were most probably prepared by Temperley, pointedly note that the Wellington Battalion ‘withdrew without orders’, and paid scant attention to the battalion’s achievements and losses.65

  Only between 50 and 70 unwounded or lightly wounded members of the Wellington Battalion walked off Chunuk Bair, fewer than one in ten of the 760 who had stormed up the hill in the morning. They were in a dreadful state: ‘Their uniforms were torn, their knees broken. They had had no water since the morning; they could talk only in whispers; their eyes were sunken; their knees trembled; some broke down and cried like children.’66 Charles Lepper was one of the survivors. He, along with the quartermaster sergeant and his assistant, who had not taken part in the fighting on Chunuk Bair, were the only men left in the Taranaki Company from the main body that had sailed from New Zealand in October 1914. With classic New Zealand understatement he remarked, ‘so I suppose I have been very lucky.’67 Another soldier who survived the battle simply stated that 8 August 1915 was the ‘most awful day I ever spent’.68 Amongst the Wellington Battalion dead were four pairs of brothers and the two youngest New Zealanders to lose their lives in the campaign, Privates Basil Ernest Mercer and Martin Andrew Persson, aged just 17.69

  The 280-strong Fifth Reinforcements for the Wellington Battalion arrived at the front line on 8 August and were used to reinforce the Otago Battalion. They fought with that unit and the Wellington Mounted Rifles in their epic and costly defence of Chunuk Bair, that ‘corner of Hell’, on 9 August. Within 24 hours about half of the Wellington Battalion reinforcements become casualties. By the end of the day, the New Zealand troops on Chunuk Bair were exhausted and that evening they were relieved by two British battalions. These inexperienced battalions failed to prepare properly for renewed Turkish counter-attacks and were overwhelmed on 10 August. As well as driving the Allies from Chunuk Bair, the massive Turkish counterattack recaptured the Farm area, and was only prevented from making further advances by devastating fire from the New Zealand machine guns at the Apex.70 The Apex was thick with dead and wounded men. On 9 August Private Benjamin Smart noted in his diary: ‘I never want to be in the midst of such a sickening and bloodcurdling sight again ... the cries of the wounded nearly drove one mad’.71 After these days of intense combat the seaward or western side of Chunuk Bair was ‘a most revolting sight, it is one solid mass of dead men’.72

  View of ‘The Farm’, a much fought over area below Chunuk Bair. This photograph was taken from the Turkish position on Chunuk Bair early in 1919.

  Australian War Memorial

  Trenches at the Apex, probably in late August 1915, showing Chunuk Bair in the distance.

  Hampton Album, Alexander Turnbull Library

  After its withdrawal from Chunuk Bair the Wellington Battalion bivouacked on the side of Cheshire Ridge and spent periods in the front line on Rhododendron Ridge and at the Apex. During one of their periods of rest, on 21 August, a memorial service, attended by virtually every available member of Wellington Battalion, was held for William George Malone.73 Sergeant George Bollinger noted in his diary at the end of the month that: ‘bags upon bags of mail are arriving, but for every ten that arrive nine are returned “killed in action” “wounded” “missing” etc. It is hard to write this on all the letters.’74 Five days after Malone’s death, Private Smart gave Harston Malone’s personal effects so that they could be sent to his widow.75 On 14 September the Wellington Battalion and the other ‘remnants of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade staggered down to Anzac Cove’.76 The following day they sailed to Lemnos for a desperately needed rest.77 In the August offensive the New Zealand Infantry Brigade has suffered 1714 casualties (killed, wounded or missing) of which 812 were from the Wellington Battalion.78

  Before the battalion left Gallipoli, Johnston sent the unit a message of condolence over the death of Malone. Johnston and Godley also visited the battalion and praised its outstanding service in the battle.79 Malone’s inspiring leadership during the August offensive was recognised by a mention in despatches, his second. Because he had been killed there was effectively no honour or award that Malone could receive apar
t from a ‘mention in despatches’ or the Victoria Cross.80 There was a strong undertone of bitterness within the Wellington Battalion after the battle at the lack of official recognition given to its achievements and sacrifices in General Hamilton’s official despatch of 11 December 1915 and elsewhere. Within a few days of the battle, a member of the battalion, who had not taken part, wrote that: ‘From what I can gather ... there has [sic] been some very bad mistakes made, and we have lost far more heavily than we should have done.’81 The traumatised survivors of the Wellington Battalion would have been even more disillusioned if they had known, as we know now, that the August offensive at Gallipoli had from the outset virtually no chance of achieving any sort of significant breakthrough. In particular, Chunuk Bair could not have been held as long as the rest of the Sari Bair range remained in Turkish hands.82 Godley at least partially recognised this when he wrote in September 1915 that although the loss of Chunuk Bair ‘was very disappointing ... I console myself with the thought that I believe it is very questionable whether we could have stuck it out on this narrow razor backed ridge, exposed as we should have been [to the] concentrated fire of all the Turks’ guns from Kilid Bahr, etc.’83