LANDING OF THE BRITISH FORCE.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15278, 14 May 1915, Page 8

LANDING OF THE BRITISH FORCE.

A THBILLTffG STOET. GKEAT. DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME. SUCCESS AFTER A DESPERATE STRUGGLE. J*Tim«s" and "Sydney Sun" Scrvicea.l LONDON, May 12. A correspondent tells a graphic, story of the landing on the Gallii>oli Peninsula: — While the Australasians were fighting gallantly against heavy odds/ the British troops were being crowned with eqnal laurels at the southern end of the Peninsula. The story of the successful landing of the Twenty-ninth Division is one of devoted heroism and self-sacri-fice. Already the line efcfetche3 across the whole southern end of the Peninsula along the lower elopes of the heights of Achibaba. Both flanks are secured by the artillery of the warships.

The army is, faced by a heavy task, but it holds a fine tract of flat country with convenient landins places, with immunity from the. enemy's guns.

The southern landing was different from the north, which was successfully solved by the Australasians. There is Tio foreshore there, but jagged rocks, intersected by stretches of beach, where the Britishers disembarked under cover of the warships against an enemy holding heights above tEe beach, ranging to seven hundred feet, whioh oomrnahdbd the landing.

Nevertheless, the landing was effected, though with heavy losses, and after a desperate day-long struggle.

At points the British literally clung to the cliff edge, exposed to a raking fire from fortified hedges of barbed wire on the beaches. Naval units, while attempting to cut this wire, were shot down by concealed Maxims. Engineers and Navy men rushed on and swarmed up,the cliffe, capturing the Turks' outlying trenches and checking their enfilading ■ fire on the foreshore. The Turks did not dare to leave their trenches.

There teas a. serious development at night. • when the Turks, heavily reinforced, savagely attacked the beach. Parties of officers, bluejackets, engineers, and naval men who were engaged in disembarking stores on the foreshor©, wero ordered to rush up to the firing line. Others carried up . ammunition through a long night's fighting. The Turks were finally driven off with heavy losses.-

Another landing on the 2oth was memorable for the novel experiment of running a transport ashore to facilitate the ■ disembarkation of the troops and avoid exposure. The transport's steel sides afforded, cover, saving hundreds of lives, tie men disembarking through. doors cut in the ship's sides. Twelve Maxims were mounted in the bow, the fir© from which covered the landing.

The transport swept in, preceded by warships and steam pinnaces and boats to be used for the landing, and was grounded in deep water on a reef. A lighter was brought up to assist in the disembarkation, the men holding the lighter under a hail of bullets. Meanwhile Maxims and pom-poms were raining a tornado of lead into the transport. •

The first landing party of. one hundred men was almost annihilated, And

the disembarkation was deferred. Two hundred men were racked like sardines in the 'tween-decks. . The troops landed under cover of darkness safely at eleven o'clock. A furious Turkish fusilade swept the beach, but did no damage. An advance was made on the' 26th, and there was a desperate fight for trenches, which, were won, and the Turks fled from the beach, the way being cleared for an advance inland. No finer tale was ever- told than this of the landing of the Australasian and British troops.