by Alan Tucker
Dear Mother and Father,
The big day has come. We are about to see action. l can write no more on that matter for security reasons. l can, however, write about personal matters.
Some of us will not survive tomorrow’s landing. I pray I am one of the lucky ones so that I may, when this war is over, come home to you—and Hans.
When next you see him, tell him l think about him daily and tell him I am not fighting German soldiers—I am fighting Turks. By the time you read this letter, the news of our landing will have been published in the newspapers back home so hopefully the censors will not blank out what I have written.
Chaplain Frank has been a great support in recent days leading up to our offensive. You and he would get on like a house on fire. He is old but he understands young men.
He is one of the censors and says he’s privileged to read letters containing such personal thoughts as those expressed by sons to their families and loved ones. He told me our lads appear rough and ready on the outside but show great sensitivity within.
I guess at moments such as this, when death lurks in the morrow’s dawn, there is no time for anything but honesty between loved ones—and fellow soldiers.
I must go now, Mother and Father. Hopefully I will survive to write again.
With love and kisses from Victor, the boy who is proud to be your son
5 pm
The gods are against us! Our departure has been postponed. The skies are clear but the wind has whipped up choppy seas making it too dangerous to transport men in small boats.
A delay such as this increases everyone’s stress. Only battle action will dispel our nerves.
Thursday, 22 April
Waiting is agony. Men are tense. Tempers flare, friends argue. Chaplain Frank talks to men to ease their nerves. Officers run fitness sessions, drills and lectures to keep us focused on the upcoming landing and to burn up our nervous energy. Nothing will ease the tension but battle action.
Friday, 23 April
We leave tomorrow. The winds have dropped, the seas are calm and I am on edge. We’ll be transported close to the Turkish coast then, in the early hours of Sunday morning, we’ll storm the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula.
I sat all day with my friends surrounded by our battalion. One thousand men, usually full of cheek and bravado, were nervously subdued.
Saturday, 24 April
Some of the battalion will soon be ferried across to the Prince of Wales. Once they and men from other battalions are aboard their allocated ships, the convoy will leave Mudros harbour en route to the Island of Imbros, fifteen miles off the Turkish coast. We’ll anchor there for a few hours.
My company will be fed a hot meal at 9 pm then towards midnight we’ll be transferred to the Scourge, a British destroyer, for the short voyage to the peninsula.
There will be no sleep for my beloved battalion tonight. Some men, sadly, have slept their last night on earth.
I hope a Turkish bullet is not destined to end my life.
Sunday, 25 April
12.30 am
I can’t sleep. No-one can. Men are either quietly talking to their mates, writing another final letter or like me, staring out into the darkness. The night sky is clear and thousands of stars punctuate the heavens.
I let my mind wander free of fear, friends and family. My eyes glaze and the stars blur: I imagine myself at one with nature. It is to nature I must trust in the hours and days to come. I will need all my natural survival instincts as well as the contours of natural ridges and rock formations to protect me from enemy gunfire.
My survival will also depend on my ability, and that of my friends, to put into action all that we have practised these past eight months.
The attack has been timed to the minute.
Thirty minutes from now we’ll climb down the rope ladders into the lighters and find our seat. I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve been chosen as one of the 500 men from my battalion who will be in the first wave to land. It is quite an honour. The remainder of our lads will land in the second and third waves later in the morning. The Turks won’t know what’s hit them.
In two hours’ time, when all the lighters are full, we’ll be towed by steam launches towards shore in lines of three.
In three and a half hours we’ll be cast loose by the launches and our naval crew will row us silently to the shore where, at 4.30 am, as the first rays of dawn light the sky, we’ll disembark, wade ashore, drop our heavy packs and move swiftly and silently with bayonets fixed onto Turkish soil.
We’ve been ordered to use cold steel to dispatch any Turks we encounter. By killing in such a way we’ll maintain the element of surprise as long as possible.
We’ve been told by our officers that we MUST succeed in securing the beach front because no retreat is possible once we’re ashore.
Our goal is to push two miles inland.
Cold steel and stealth will initially be our most effective weapons.
Any minute now the order to form a line and climb down into the lighters will be given.
Thursday, 29 April
I can hardly write of the horrors I have experienced. I am so exhausted I cannot think straight. My battalion has fought day and night for four days. And our reward? Late last night we were relieved at the front and sent behind the lines to rest. Rest! Bullets whiz past our heads and Turkish shells explode all around us. Our only protection is the overhang of the cliff above us. I lie slumped against it gazing out to sea.
Our fleet fires relentlessly onto the Turkish positions in the hills above us. Turkish guns return fire on our cruisers and destroyers and lob shells into the shallows just beyond the beach where I ‘rest’.
There is no rest. There is no advance. The Turks were well prepared for our attack: and they are far tougher soldiers than our commanders predicted. We are stuck, as Needle said, between a rock and a hard place.
We cannot go forward and we cannot go back: not that anyone would dare mention such a dishonourable action as retreat.
4 pm
Our commanding officer assembled us at noon. It pains me to write that half of the officers and ranks of my wonderful battalion have been killed. We’ve suffered 450 casualties in four days. The other two Australian battalions must have a similar number of casualties. Who knows how many New Zealand, British and Indian troops have also lost their lives.
What ground have we gained? Very little. We did not reach our main objective, the third ridge. Our perimeter is, at best, a few hundred yards into this damned peninsula. Pardon my language.
Despite our battalion’s best efforts and the heroic deeds of several individuals, we cannot push the Turks off the high ground. And while they command the heights we are sitting ducks here below. All we can do is dig in. We’ve dug trenches to fight from and for protection as we go about our daily business, and dugouts (like wombat holes) to sleep in. Some of these are mere shelves, dug a foot or so into the trench walls so we can get a few minutes of sleep and not be trodden upon.
The cold nights and gut-grabbing hunger are a blight upon us all but the tiredness is worse. It kills our optimism, lowers morale and leaves us vulnerable to careless moves, and here on Gallipoli one wrong move can be fatal. The Turkish snipers are deadly and always on the job.
The past four days have blurred into one to such an extent that I can hardly remember my life and routines before the landing—and I cannot imagine a future beyond the next few minutes.
If it wasn’t for my cobbers, I would find it hard to go on. Needle, Robbo and Fish got through the landing unscathed. I lost contact with them in the confusion and was relieved to see them safe and sound when the battalion assembled today.
It was heartbreaking to hear the many silences, as the battalion roll was called, when dead or wounded comrades failed to answer their name.
Friday, 30 April
A few morsels of reasonable food and a few hours of interrupted sleep have lifted my spirits considerably. I feel ashamed by the
downhearted words I penned yesterday. My morale is considerably higher. Today I am confident we can push the Turks back across the peninsula and win this battle.
Perhaps it was my young age that contributed to my earlier sense of failure. My cobbers, being older and more worldly, maintained their confidence despite the atrocious conditions.
I’m glad I’m feeling on top of the world again because tomorrow we’re to go forward to relieve the 9th Battalion.
The action here is never-ending. We are either engaged with the enemy, digging deeper trenches and dugouts or we’re filling sandbags to extend the height of the parapet in front of the trench. The ground here, late in spring, is rock hard. The dirt we dig out is bagged up and stacked between us and the Turks.
‘Abdul’ is what the lads call the enemy soldiers. I wonder what they call us? Something not so nice I guess because we’ve invaded their country.
We ran out of sandbags yesterday. I’m not sure where new ones will come from. Everything has to be shipped in, especially water. With summer approaching we’ll need more and more of that. What little we are issued each day is mostly used for drinking. Bathing is out of the question unless one swims in the ocean but the Turks shell the foreshore continuously. ‘Beachy Bill’ is the name the lads have given the main gun that shells the beach at all hours of the day and night. Dozens of men die or are maimed every day while going about the innocent task of cleansing their bodies.
In the week and a bit since we landed, I’ve come to appreciate the simple pleasures of home that my parents provided and which I took for granted.
Later
After rereading my entries I realised I am yet to write about my doings in the first few days ashore. There is nothing heroic to report: quite the opposite. What I have to recount is frightening and shocking. I am ashamed of my actions and reactions and, indeed, find it difficult to put descriptions on paper.
I came ashore with high hopes and dreams of a manly victory but those ideals have been forever shattered. That I am alive to write is remarkable: what I have to tell is soul-destroying. But, I procrastinate.
I have killed men and watched my comrades die. My former innocence is stained in blood.
We were cast off a hundred yards or so off-shore and rowed through the gentle breakers. The sun had not yet risen and nor had the Turks. Or so I thought.
My false impression was soon shattered. Shots rang out even before the sun rose to spotlight our presence. The man to my right slumped dead before we disembarked. He’d trained for eight months and travelled 8,000 miles but did not get to stand and face the enemy.
As soon as the bow touched land, we leapt overboard, neck-deep in water. We held our rifles aloft and waded up onto the shore. Bullets whizzed around our heads in the pre-dawn light. I pitied the lads in the later attacks who would be spotlit by the rays of the rising sun. They would be easy targets unless those of us in the first wave could push the enemy back.
Immediately my feet touched dry land, I sprinted for the protection of the cliff, off-loaded my heavy pack, fixed my bayonet and readied for the fight of my life.
In the confusion, men from various battalions were thrust randomly together and the officers with whom we’d trained became separated from us. In such a chaotic situation under heavy enemy fire, the lads took the initiative and charged up the crumbling ridges firing at will.
Initially the enemy retreated and we were able to move forward strongly as ordered: but our advance was short-lived. We soon met fierce resistance and were forced to seek protection in erosion gullies and behind rocky outcrops.
The early morning sun, unfortunately for our lads, gave the Turks a definite advantage: our heads and bodies were caught in a natural spotlight. Staring into the glare made it difficult for us to accurately return fire. The Turks’ dual advantage of sun and high ground left us in a vulnerable position.
Machine-guns opened fire and our men were cut down in lines when they stood to advance but when we stayed put we made it easy for Turkish gunners on a hilltop to our right, to get our range. Shrapnel shells burst overhead spraying thousands of lethal metal fragments in every direction. Those who were closest to the explosion were ripped to shreds and died instantly.
Over and above the whizz of bullets, the chatter of machine-guns and the crump of shells, boomed the roar of British naval guns lobbing shells high over our heads onto the ridge tops where Turkish soldiers and artillery were positioned.
Men shouted to be heard or cried aloud in pain.
I felt my heart beating wildly: on a more normal day I am sure I would have heard its thump, thump, thump in my chest.
One sound I could hear clearly was the frantic scraping of shovels as men all around me dug shallow oblong holes in the rocky ground. Some were digging their own graves.
‘Dig in, Quickie,’ someone shouted.
I didn’t recognise the voice nor turn to see who spoke. I kept my head down and did as instructed. I scratched and scraped a scar into the earth to hide at least some part of my body from the savage Turkish counterattack. I knew that if I failed in this basic task, I would soon have need of a more permanent hole in the ground.
Sadly, the blood of many of my fellow countrymen has already drained into Turkish soil. Who knows when it will be safe enough to stand and bury their remains. Boys so full of life just minutes before the landing, had breathed their last breath by dawn.
My battalion is the centre of the Australian section; the 9th is to our right guarding our flank in an arc to the sea; the 11th is to our left on a ridge leading to the higher ground. Above us and everywhere in front, often only a matter of ten, twenty or thirty yards away, are the Turks. Furthest to our left (north) are the New Zealanders. We’ve heard nothing of how advanced they are or how much resistance they encountered. All we can think about is defending our own patch.
The landing occurred less than a week ago and already the lines have been drawn and a stalemate has occurred. Reinforcements have landed but still we are unable to push the Turks back.
‘How’d we get into this fine mess?’ Robbo asked with a grim smile.
‘I dunno but I’m glad I’ve got you lads with me,’ Needle replied. ‘Cos I think we’re stuck.’
‘More reinforcements are landing on Friday,’ Fish said.
‘Yeah, and for every hundred blokes we recruit in Australia and ship over here three months later, the Turks conscript a thousand and truck them to the peninsula within days. Unless someone comes up with a bright idea,’ Robbo countered, ‘we’ll be having Christmas in Turkey later this year.’
‘I never had much of a liking for Christmas turkey,’ Needle said with a grin. ‘I’ve got less of one now.’
‘Whatever happens, lads, I want you to know I’ve enjoyed every minute of your company,’ Fish replied.
‘Enough sentiment,’ Needle said. ‘We need to stop talking and dig for dear life.’
‘Hang on for grim death, more like it,’ Robbo concluded just as a fresh barrage of shrapnel shells erupted around us.
Sunday, 2 May
Chaplain Frank visited the trench line this morning and spent a few minutes with every man who wanted a chat. He’d been refused permission to land in the first few days because every seat in a lighter was needed for a fighting man. He told us he’s been refused permission to hold a service until things settle down. Command doesn’t want large numbers of men gathering for any length of time in one location. Turkish observers are ever vigilant and Turkish gunners deadly accurate.
He handed out writing paper and pencils so I wrote a quick letter home. Who knows when it will be shipped off the peninsula. The Big Brass have more important things on their mind just now.
Dear Mother and Father,
Writing is difficult for many reasons. We are ashore as I’m sure you’ve read in the papers. Our landing was not without losses. Luckily, my friends survived the landing and are entrenched within a few feet of me as I scribble these words. Needle told me to give you the th
umbs up.
We are determined to succeed. I hope Hans can stay strong of mind too.
I think of you frequently. I miss you and our peaceful little town. Mine shafts are preferable to dugouts and trenches.
Your loving son, Victor
Monday, 3 May
The ground is rock-hard which makes the job of digging our trenches deeper, backbreaking. The most efficient way of increasing the depth is to fill sandbags with the excavated dirt and stack them in front of the trench as a parapet. Stacking them into a stable position is dangerous work. Turkish snipers can see what we’re doing and are lined up ready to kill any man who raises his head an inch too high. It’s not even safe at night-time. The snipers know where we are. If they hear what we’re doing they fire into the darkness. They’re not quite as accurate, of course, but they don’t miss their mark by much—if they miss it.
Luxuries don’t exist here. The small amount of firewood we each brought ashore was long ago burned. The hills are densely covered with low undergrowth. It burns well but too quickly. Some hills already have bare batches where whole bushes have been uprooted, broken apart and used for cooking fires. The constant shelling has contributed to further destruction of shrubbery. Even the relentless machine-gun fire has cut many bushes off at ground level.
The positive side to the removal of the undergrowth is that it destroys hiding places for Turkish snipers. They’re deadly shots even when firing from the distant ridge tops but those lying in the undergrowth are so close their bullets do terrible damage. The previously thick undergrowth allowed them to crawl behind our lines and shoot us in the back. One sod shot the mug out of my mouth while drinking yesterday morning. I’m lucky he didn’t blow my head off. My mates saw where the shot came from and peppered his hiding spot. We heard no more from him.
