Gallipoli
Page 23
To dodge the sentry we turned slightly to our left and passed through the line of sentries, and reached the stream. I made a noise in climbing down the bank and shuffling footsteps were heard on the bank at the far side of the creek. The scrub gave good cover and we were not spotted, although several of the enemy passed within a few feet of the creek. We made our way snake-fashion towards some scrub, crossing a stretch of almost clear ground, when we heard footsteps on our left and a party of men came straight towards us. We were doing the caterpillar act at the moment: myself in front, then the Major, followed by Sergeant Will, with about 10 paces distance between.8
Bombardier Albert Orchard, 9th Battery, 3rd Field Artillery Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
The men hugged the ground as closely as possible hidden in the scrub and awaited their fate. The Turkish patrol came up to within fifteen yards of their hiding place.
I will never forget the many and varied thoughts that passed through my mind during those few minutes of suspense. Had the sentry in the scrub seen us? Was he giving directions to the party of Turks for our destruction? We were like rats in a trap. The Turks moved on towards us. We had quietly fixed bayonets and as they came nearer we realised that they did not know of our presence – surprise on our part was our only chance. They came on an angle – almost like echelon – and would reach me first. There were nine in the party, the sentry having joined the patrol. The leader was within about 5 feet before spotting me. He raised his rifle and bayonet to strike, but Major Blamey fired his revolver and killed him. Will and myself, who were armed with rifles, also fired rapidly at the Turks, bunched together – making an excellent target for us. Seven of the enemy were down in about that many seconds. One ran towards the scrub and the only other able to run made towards the creek. That being our only line of retreat, we collectively accounted for that one and then closed up to see how we had fared, to find that we had not a scratch between us. In all we had fired about fifteen to twenty rounds. We had raised a hornet’s nest around us and had a mile or more of enemy territory to cover before we could hope to be safe. By the time we reached the creek, Turks were running in all directions and the noise they made was terrific, so that we had no need to worry over the noise we made as we ran towards our lines.9
Bombardier Albert Orchard, 9th Battery, 3rd Field Artillery Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
On their return they received a soldier’s reward – a swig from Blamey’s water bottle, which to their delight was not filled with water! But it was obvious that any further patrols would meet with disaster and the efforts to locate ‘Beachy Bill’ had been thwarted.
At Anzac there was a drip-drip of casualties caused by the close-quarter nature of the fighting. Everyone was at risk; rank or status gave no guarantee of protection. A small mistake in judging dead ground or a second’s hesitation in crossing a vulnerable spot could be fatal. Thus it could be no surprise when Major General Sir William Bridges was killed in Monash Valley on 15 May. Captain Horace Viney was on his way to the beach with a working party when he met Bridges coming up the gully to visit the headquarters of the 1st Light Horse Brigade in Monash Valley. As they were not part of his 1st Division it is difficult to justify the dangers Bridges so rashly incurred.
To negotiate Monash Gully safely one had to walk on alternate sides of it according to how the valley twisted and turned. Those who knew it could go up and down it comparatively safely by keeping under cover on one side until a twist in the gully exposed that side to the Turkish fire. It was then necessary to dart across the gully, a distance of from 10 to 20 yards, and gain shelter of the opposite bank. The Turks had marked down the crossing places and had them covered by snipers or machine guns. The worst crossing places had been protected by barricades, but they were neither high enough, nor long enough to give complete immunity. Having been up and down Monash Gully several times I had learned by painful experience just where the dangerous spots were. On several occasions I had beaten the Turkish snipers in my dashes across the gully only by inches and I consequently did not loiter unduly in crossing such places. One of the most dangerous was a distance of about 5 yards between the end of a barricade at the top end of the gully near a gravel pit, where an ambulance collecting post had been established, and a small spur on the opposite side of the gully.10
Captain Horace Viney, 3rd (South Australian & Tasmanian) Light Horse Regiment, 1st Light Horse Brigade, NZ&A Division, AIF
After a brief conversation Viney felt it beholden upon him to warn Bridges and his party of the dangers lurking higher up the gully.
I impressed on them that they must keep on the right-hand side of the gully until they came to the ambulance collecting station and also that the only danger spot before they reached Brigade Headquarters was the 5-yard dash across the gully from the end of the barricade there. If they crossed that at speed they would be quite safe. I was very emphatic about the necessity of crossing that spot quickly, and not only because of the machine gun the Turks had trained on it, but also because I had noticed that General Bridges was becoming less and less inclined to dash across the gully at those places where it was necessary to do so. I think that he was of the opinion that I had exaggerated the danger.11
Captain Horace Viney, 3rd (South Australian & Tasmanian) Light Horse Regiment, 1st Light Horse Brigade, NZ&A Division, AIF
Bridges reached the barricade and then talked for a while with the medical officers. After parting from them he went to cross the gully but in doing so he seems to have half-stopped and turned his head as if to speak again. A Turkish sniper seized his chance and Bridges was seriously wounded in the right thigh by a bullet which severed the major blood vessels. Only the immediate presence of medical assistance saved his life there and then, but he had lost far too much blood to have a decent chance of survival. Amputation was an option, but his age – fifty-four – militated against that. The result was to be expected: gangrene struck and Bridges took his by then inevitable fate with an admirable sangfroid, saying, ‘Anyway, I have commanded an Australian Division for nine months.’12 He died aboard a hospital ship on 18 May.
Any criticism of Bridges as a military commander has to be tempered by an acknowledgment of the awful confusion of the landing at Anzac, which left him doing little more than fire-fighting the endless calls for reinforcements that poured into his headquarters. On the other hand, although he had made his personal reconnaissance of Second Ridge before 09.00, once he was back in the beach area he did not attempt to seize control of the situation. In particular he allowed de facto control of events to pass to Colonel Sinclair-MacLagan; this was an abrogation of his command responsibility. Throughout Bridges demonstrated considerable courage, but, like many British senior officers, he was far too willing to expose himself to unnecessary personal danger, thereby leaving his division leaderless at a crucial time.
The death of Bridges was just one incident among many that encapsulated a strange new way of life for the soldiers of the ANZAC Corps. The low-key but deadly fighting generated a continuous aural backdrop to their existence that could vary from the simple crack of a passing bullet to a veritable cacophony.
The noises of the battlefield are numerous and varied, and after a little while it is quite easy to distinguish the different sounds. The bullet which passes close by – say, within 10 or 20 feet – has a gentle purring hum, like a low caressing whistle, long drawn out. The bullet which passes well overhead, especially if fired from a long range, has a sharp sudden crack like a whip, and really feels as if it is very close. Our own rifle fire listened to from behind the firing-line sounds like a low rumble or growl. Our machine guns are exactly like the rattle of a kettledrum. The enemy’s shrapnel sounds like a gust of wind in a wintry gale, swishing through the air and ending in a loud bang and a cloud of smoke, when the shell bursts. Our own artillery is the noisiest of all, both the discharge of the guns and the bursting of the shells being earsplitting, with a reverberating echo that lasts 20 or 30 seconds.13
Colonel J
ohn Monash, Headquarters, 4th Australian Brigade, NZ&A Division, AIF
By mid May what the Anzacs needed were the kind of high-angle howitzers that could fire up over the ridges and drop shells on to the Turks lurking behind. One obviously available spare gun was the 6-inch howitzer that had been fixed aboard the Prince George during the naval phase of the campaign. Regimental Sergeant Major David Hepburn and his howitzer were brought ashore and attached to the New Zealanders on the left of Anzac with a makeshift gun detachment of Royal Marines. Hepburn was a gunnery expert but he had never even conceived of the kind of problems he faced at Anzac.
We had to fire over two successive ridges each 400 feet high at a target only 1,300 yards away. We could not see the target. We had the sea at our backs and that was the only direction in which we did not fire. On one occasion we fired in one direction, then turned the gun completely round and fired in the other direction. One afternoon we received a message, ‘Engage hostile heavy gun!’ Out came the map and from the map we laid our gun. It pointed bang over our own headquarters! It is ticklish work when the shells only just slither over the crests and when our target is only 30–100 yards from our own trenches. I never did get over the idea of firing so close to our own men.14
Regimental Sergeant Major David Hepburn, Royal Garrison Artillery
Sergeant Major Hepburn was not alone in having to adjust to the new problems and confusions of operations at Anzac. The front line positions were vulnerable to the slightest advance of the Turks. This would not matter at Helles where there was some room to breathe (though not too deeply). At Anzac a retreat of just twenty or thirty yards at one of the posts along Second Ridge could unlock the whole position. This would prove very tempting to the Turks: just one great heave and surely Anzac would be doomed.
THE TURKS RECEIVED a large reinforcement when their 2nd Division reached Gallipoli on 16 May. The new reservoir of manpower gave them a numerical superiority that reached the dizzy heights of 2 to 1. The temptation was too much and, with Enver’s approval, a general night attack was ordered along the line. The 2nd Division was to act as a battering ram in the centre and with the 19th, 5th and 16th Divisions they were to smash through the apparently vulnerable Anzac lines and sweep them into the sea. The mass attack was planned for 03.30 on 19 May. Unfortunately for the Turks, the Anzacs knew they were coming, for it was difficult to conceal such large-scale troop movements from reconnaissance aircraft. When the Turks began a long slow barrage at 17.00 on 18 May, the warning orders went out and the Anzacs ready and waiting.
A deep brooding silence reigned, broken only at intervals by the faintest rattle of accoutrements or a quietly muttered word. The shadowy outline of the head and shoulders of one’s neighbour intensified the unreality of the scene, due to the lines of his body being lost in the darkness of the narrow trench which the faint cold light of the morning stars failed to penetrate. At long last word passed from mouth to mouth, uttered quietly as though we were afraid to speak, that the outposts had come in and that ‘Jacko’ was on the move. One experienced a slight involuntary shiver that might have been due to the chill morning air, a tingling, creeping sensation at the base of the skull which passed down the spine and thoughts which had moved sluggishly now took on a racing pace. Would the impending attack succeed? Would bayonet work be necessary? One tried to picture what was going on out there, seeing in the mind’s eye figures creeping, creeping stealthily in the vain hope of catching us unprepared.15
Corporal Thomas McNamara, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
Private Charles Duke had returned to his unit after spraining his ankle on 25 April and was engaged in digging a sap with a Private Chapman out in No Man’s Land on the side of Wire Gully.
I looked over the top of the trench and to my amazement saw a Turk running across the skyline, moving towards our trenches and was quickly followed by others. Almost before I could warn Chapman, all hell seemed to break loose from the Australian trenches. Chapman and I dived through the sap to get through to our mates. All hell had been let loose but that is putting it mildly. We were waist high above the parapet pumping ten rounds rapid into him as quickly as we could fire and reload. Above all the hellish din one could hear their trumpets blowing, shouts from their officers, no doubt exhorting them on and shrill cries of, ‘Allah! Allah!’ from the men. They got Allah all right!16
Private Charles Duke, 4th (New South Wales) Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
This was the Anzacs’ chance for revenge: the waiting was over, now for the slaughter.
From flank to flank the darkness was stabbed with licking flashes of cordite and the stutter of machine guns joined into the harsh discord of the rifle fire and the hard smack of field guns. Shells screamed overhead, and when they burst with a crash the upper darkness was pierced as with fiery breath and with a high pitched, droning whine the shrapnel pellets came to earth. The air was filled with dust and acrid fumes.17
Corporal Thomas McNamara, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
As the Turks attacked they ran into a storm of small arms fire while the machine guns beat every inch of the ground in front of the vital posts teetering on the edge of Monash Valley. Shells crashed down from the Anzac gunners firing on fixed lines. Perhaps with surprise the Turks might have achieved something, but surprise was always unlikely.
In the 9th Battalion the fire was so rapid and continuous that the hot rifle bolts began to jam and had to be well-oiled. When rifle oil ran short bacon fat was used. Sometimes the man on the fire-step would borrow the rifle of the support man standing behind him and hand his own rifle down for it to cool, but this did not always suit the support man, for in a number of cases he said to his mate, ‘No, you get down and let me have a go!’18
Major Alfred Salisbury, 9th (Queensland) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
In some places the Turks’ sheer weight of numbers made it a close-run thing. At Courtney’s Post they did, just for a moment, break into the front line, thereby threatening the whole of the Anzac position. Here they encountered the redoubtable Acting Lance Corporal Albert Jacka – a man, it seems, of few words.
Great battle at 3 a.m. Turks captured large portion of our trench. D Company called into the front line. Lieutenant Hamilton shot dead. I led a section of men and recaptured the trench. I bayoneted two Turks, shot five, took three prisoners and cleared the whole trench. I held the trench alone for 15 minutes against a heavy attack.19
Lance Corporal Albert Jacka, 14th (Victoria) Battalion, 4th Brigade, NZ&A Division, AIF
This dry diary note conceals the dreadful confusions of pitch-black night fighting in the complex twists and turns of the trenches at Courtney’s Post. Jacka had set a small group of men firing rifles and throwing bombs to create a diversion while he manoeuvred himself behind the Turks to launch the sudden vicious attack that swiftly overwhelmed them. This would earn him the first Australian VC of the war.
Not far away Lance Corporal William Beech of the 2nd Battalion ran back from a forward sap overlooking Owen’s Gully which separated Johnston’s Jolly and Lone Pine. They had managed to beat off the first attack but now he was requesting reinforcements. One of just two men to respond was Private John Adams. Together they moved gingerly back up the sap.
On reaching the head of it we found five of our men dead shot through the head. Thus a periscope was essential to our very existence and one was found under the bodies. Beech immediately put it up and was alarmed by what he saw. Taking the periscope from him, I, too, received a shock at the sight of what I estimated to be four battalions of Turks forming up for another attack. Bombs were as distant as the moon, our only weapons being rifles and bayonets. Had we attempted to aim over the top we would have exposed our head and shoulders, and have immediately followed our dead pals. Beech, with tears running down his cheeks, momentarily criticised our awful predicament, and remarked, ‘It’s hell to see this mass of Turks and not being abl
e to aim at them!’ With a periscope fixed to a rifle, it would be possible, he said, to fire accurately without personal danger. Beech said that he would return to Captain Dignam and let him know that the Turks were massing for another attack. My mate and I did not think that he should go, because this would weaken the post. However, he left. It looked as though we were doomed, but we decided to stick to our job. Poking our rifles over the top, we pointed them down the gully and blazed away in the direction of the Turks. Occasionally we glanced through the periscope. Officers were shouting excitedly and striking their men across the backs and legs with swords in an attempt to get them into position. A few bugle calls and commands were then made, and on they came until their flanks were exposed to the withering fire of the 3rd Battalion on Johnston’s Jolly, and the 2nd Battalion on Lone Pine. The flanks were thus mown down and the attack was doomed. In vain the officers at the bottom of the ravine shouted and waved their arms frantically to the troops in the centre to continue the attack. But the Turks crawled about the scrub bewildered. Some of the Turks came very close to our post without observing it – so close, in fact, that we could almost have prodded them. Somewhere about this time Beech returned with a couple of men, and we all blazed away blindly at the Turks a few feet away.20
Private John Adams, 2nd (New South Wales) Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
By 05.00 the Turkish attacks had clearly failed, although further sporadic attempts were made throughout the morning. In all the Turks suffered approximately 10,000 casualties. It was later estimated that during this time the Anzacs fired some 950,000 small arms rounds and 1,400 shells.