DARDANELLES FIGHTING

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 146, 21 June 1915, Page 8

DARDANELLES FIGHTING

LETTERS FROM SOLDIERS. HELL LET LOOSE. MORE AfcOUT TURKISH TACTICS. IHE SHRAPNEt ORDEAL. Corporal L. H. Reid, of the New Zealand Engineers, who was wounded after four days' fighting at Sari Bair, says: "One night when I wae in the trenches tlie enemy kept coming forward. Their bugles would blow, and £h*n we would hear ehouths of 'Allah, , and ot» keys would warn each other along the line. Then -we would wait. The yells would get closer; in some cafes the Turke were only fifty yards tfrom our trenches. Out commanders would give the word to open fire, and there, would 'be a rattle like hell let loope. The Turks could not stick it. AH night long 'they kept crawling up in twos and threes. One chap got shot within a yard of our trench; we could touch him by putting out an larm. Some of them got through our lines where there wae a gap, and hid themselves up right in behind our lines and covered themselves up. When daylight came they caused no end of trouble. Several of our chaps were shot by them.

''Tlie rotten brutes would pick off etragglere, suoh as a wounded man returning to the beach. They would not frrc on a body of troops, as they knew they would , be hunted down. Several of them were caugfot, and then it was ehort ehrift they got. One had 800 rounds of ammunition and a week'e provisions.

"When I was going down to the beach a party of our men were going over a patch of ground from whence a shot had laid one of them low. They looked like a lot of terriers nosing after a rat, and pity that Turk when they got him.

"We found the ehrapnel shelling the most trying paTt of the ordeal. The tftislls whistle and scream 'overhead, and then burst, and a shower of lead builete nnd pieces of shell fly in all directions. The only thing is to get under cover as quickly as possible, a bank or anything like that, and one is safe, but out in the open a chap haen't a, hope. When the trenches are properly made and deep enough it is surprising how few men are hit, even with this beastly shrapnel playing on them all day. It is fearfully trying to one's nerves though for the first time, and I should think would take c. lot of getting used to.

"Thousands of Turkish shells fell in the sea and did absolutely no harm. We 'were always glad to watch their shots fall into the sea. I don't think they hit a wa/rehip the whole time I (was there."