"Trooper" Looks Back. GALLIPOLI

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 12 (Supplement)

"Trooper" Looks Back. GALLIPOLI

Mustering The > BEFORE recalling the events of l the actual mustering of the J attacking military force for the « assault on Gallipoli, it may be well to give a brief description j of this piece of Turkey. < Gallipoli is a tongue of land some ■ i fifty miles long, which varies in width - from 12 to two. or three miles. The \ steep, scarred hills are not unlike some't of those in our North Island, hack coun- , try from which the bush has long since , been destroyed and whose top soil has , been washed away, leaving yellow clay, j The hills of Gallipoli were as sharply cut, with knife-edge crests in places, , though not ae. high as the average of ' the New Zealand hills. At the time . of the Handing" these were, covered for qU 'i rter with a short dense scrub of a prickly nature. There was little cultivation, few villages, and no proper roads—altogether an inhospitable place. l One sometimes reads statements that the men who.fought on Gallipoli knew , nothing of war as compared with those in France and Flanders. Possibly they did not insofar as shell fire is concerned, but I feel constrained to submit that the troops on the .peninsula, suffered mole than their comrades of Europe. The very isolation, of v the place made it most terribly monotonous; there was no friendly village behind the lines which might offer respite from the daily round. Nothing but a strip of beach—and the t •■••■,;' '. ' : ' ''" "' . : ■ '"

Attacking Forces sea, which offered no escape unless one was sent away sick or wounded. Just how deadly this isolation was had to be experienced to be realised. Further, should we suffer an extreme reverse, there was no retreat beyond the beach, which would become a veritable cbarnel house in such event. The troops depended on water —and weather —for everything they needed, even fresh water itself. In Europe it was possible to,get a hot bath, at least on.occasion, and the whole of the body could be cleaned. On Gallipoli, enough to drink was often lacking. No, fresh bread, no fresh meat, except very rarely, indeed. These facts are not to make the Anzacs "martyrs" or "heroes," but in order to preserve a reasonable balance between a greater body of men who -served in European theatres and that now small band who faced the scrubby, scarred heights of Gallipoli so long ago, and whose deeds gave Anzac Day, April.2s, ae a day of universal remembrance for all. Composite Force The Dardanelles Expeditionary Force was first heard of on April 9, 1915. The French had been ready for this subsidiary operation since March 16. Britain had thousands of Imperial, Australian and New Zealand troops in Egypt. The nucleus of the Dardanelles or Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was the now famous 29th Division, composed mainly of regular soldiers with consider-

able experience behind them; men of the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, let Lancashires, Ist Royal Munsters, Ist Royal Dublins, 2nd South Wales Borderers, Ist King's Own Scottish Borderers, Ist Royal Inniskillings, Ist Borderers, 2nd Hampshires, 4th Worcesters, Ist Essex, and a Territorial, the sth Royal Scots. These with a Naval division, the Australians, New Zealanders, a Territorial division of East Lancashires, and a large number of seasoned Indian troops, created thp equivalent of three corps, 120,000 men, under the command of General Sir lan Hamilton. The Expeditionary Force was assembled in Egypt in the latter days of March and early in April. The Bay of Mudros, in the island of Lemnos, was chosen as the advanced base, for which purpose it was ideal under the circumstances. Part of the force was landed on the island, and the rest remained on the ships in which they had arrived, where, under naval officers, they.practised the landing of men, guns and horses in preparation for the real thing off Gallipoli. There was no question about it, they were not going to surprise the enemy, however .desirable this element may be, and is, in military operations. "Jacko" Turk would be waiting. He had expected us to make such a landing, not in April, 1915, but in November, 1914, before the first shot was fired by us at him. The Turco-German staff had no illusions; they realised that without control of the land .the Straits could not be taken or held. The events of previous wars in other parts of the world had been sufficient lesson to them in this. The possible landing places were few in number, small in extent, and somewhat clearly defined by the physical contours. And so we see the stage set for another and thrilling act in the drama of New Zealand's share in the Great War. ■ *-