‘We were pasted all the way...’

Press, 5 August 1978, Page 13

‘We were pasted all the way...’

Recently, for the first time in 63 years since New Zealanders and Turks fought so ferociously for a succession of deep-cut gullies and wild, rugged spurs which nobody had wanted before — nor has wanted since — Mr Bassett recalled those events for publication: “About nine o’clock that morning General Johnston wanted a telephone line laid from his headquarters to Chunuk Bair. I volunteered to go, and I was alloted three excellent men — Edwards from Wellington, Corporal McDermott, who had arrived that day in the sth reinforcements and who was really senior to me, and another Wellington man, McLeod. “The General and the brigade major both saw us off, and I remember the general saying, ‘Keep low, keep low.’ But evidently we didn’t keep low enough, because we had to make short, sharp dashes under enemy fire, mostly rifle fire from snipers. It was pretty tough, and I think that when we got about 100 yards McLeod was wounded. He was able to get back to headquarters without any help. “We proceeded on our way as best we could, because we were getting pasted all the way. I remember seeing a fly hovering round and thought to myself: ‘My God, I wish I was a fly.’ “By this time we’d got about 300 yards — I’m estimating — and I saw a very nice clump of frendly-looking trees that would afford good shelter, so I made for that with my boys. “While we were getting ready for the next dash,

along came a squadron, or maybe more, of Auckland Mounted Rifles. The commander comandeered my telephone. He wanted orders from brigade about where he was to go into the line. While he was talking to brigade along came another batch of signallers. They’d come a

roundabout route through the trees and up a valley. “A chap named Dignam was in charge, and he had with him two very fine signallers named Whittaker and Burkett.” Corporal Bassett was taking shelter when the second group of signallers reported to him. He promptly told them to lie down, because they were attracting fire. He then sent Dignam’s group ahead, laying line as they went, and followed them as soon as the Auckland Mounted Rifles officer had finished his conversation with brigade. “We contacted them at the foot of the hill, where they had run out of wire. At that stage I reorganised the gangs and sent Dignam, Whittaker, Edwards, and Corporal McDermott up to report to the adjutant of the Wellington regiment on the hill. “I thought it was only fair that since Dignam had

got there first he should have the honour of reporting, which he did. I kept Burkett back to help me in case of eventualities, because Burkett and myself were the only two linemen.” (Meanwhile, on top of the hill that was Chunuk Bair, the situation was grim. Swinton wrote: “Lieutenant Colonel Malone, commanding the Wellingtons, was the hero of the day. Every time the Turks appeared on the crest, he led a countercharge which swept them back.”) Below the ridge, Corporal Bassett and Signaller Burkett got on with straightening out the telephone wire in a valley which was sheltered for about 100 yards from the enemy fire. “The valley was full of dead and wounded," Mr Bassett recalls. “It was a heart-rend-ing sight. People wanting water, and that sort of thing.” About an hour later Di’ gnam came running down the hill to say that the line was “out” and that he had an urgent despatch to take back to brigade. Bassett decided to repair the line — which he suspected had been cut by shrapnel fire — if he could. “At this stage I told Burkett what I was going to do. He had been sent out without a telephone. Well, a lineman without a telephone is like an infantryman without a rifle.” Even though the pressure was coming on, Corporal Bassett was logical and clear-thinking. Certain that the Anzacs would win the campaign, little dreaming of the ultimate ignominious withdrawal the

force would make, he ordred Burkett to collect some equipment: “You go back up the hill and collect the spindles for those drums, because if we’re going to Constantinople we’ll need them.”

The spindles were “as scarce as hen’s teeth” in those days, Mr Bassett says. “All our equipment was scarce.”

After instructing Burkett to check ‘he knots in the line on the way, Corporal Bassett set off to glory — although he did not consider it to be such then. And even today he refuses to recognise that he did more than anyone else on Gallipoli. "I followed our line all the way to a point where I could see some shelling, and I happened to come across three breaks in the line. Two of them were very close together, and the other was 12ft to 15ft away, on towards brigade. I had no trouble mending the first two breaks, but the other one was causing me a lot of trouble. “It was out in the open, and I thought to myself that if I’d got to go out there, I was going to be sniped. But it had to be done, and while I was put-> ting the last knot in this break he got on to me with his sniping. “I was face down and belly down, as near as I could get to mother earth, and he gave me a hell of a fright. I’m not saying how many bullets he put over — I didn’t count them. I edged my way back to where the ground sloped down to some good cover and rolled over into the cover — so I managed to beat him to it. “From then on I did my

best to find breaks, but it’s a hard thing without a mate and a telephone, and I eventually found my way back to brigade. By this time the afternoon was getting on — and the first thing they told me was that the line was not functioning, after all my work. Burkett had already arrived back, so we decided to go out that- night. We went out at dusk, and we were out until first light the next morning.”

On Chunuk Bair, in the last of his heroic countercharges, Lieutenant Colonel Malone had been killed, writes Swinton. “But the Turks were for the time being subdued, and after nightfall the Otago battalion and two squadrons of the Wellington Mounted Rifles relieved the shattered garrison on the ridge. Only a mere handful of the Wel-

lingtons were found there when relief arrived.” That morning of August 9, exhausted, suffering from dysentery, Corporal Bassett did not even bother formally to report in, but went straight to his bivvy and rested there until midday. That afternoon General Johnston ordered a fresh line laid to Chunuk Bair. “Five of us took it out,” Mr Bassett says. “Burkett and Dignam helped bring

back Whittaker, who had been wounded the day before and was paralysed from the waist down. He was a mate of mine; a very fine fellow. Where he got a wooden cross, I got a Victoria Cross. One of the things of war.” But next morning the Turkish forces, reinforced and regrouped under the personal command of Mustafa Kemal, swept from Chunuk Bair the two English units which had relieved the New Zealanders on the evening of August 9. All along the great Sari Bair Ridge that morning pf August 10 the thin lines of Anzacs were everywhere swept from their precarious holds . . . It was August 10, 1915, and the last and greatest offensive undertaken by the Anzacs on Gallipoli was over. Corporal Bassett was evacuated to the beach the next day with severe dysentery and huerasthaenia, and was placed aboard a hospital ship on August 13. He was recovering in Leicester Hospital, England, on October 15, 1915, when he picked up a newspaper and read that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross: “No-one was more astounded than me,” he says. Proud as he was to wear the gunmetal cross which has marked him in history forever as one of the bravest of them all, Cyril Bassett was a humble man when the decoration was pinned to his chest: "When I got the medal I was disappointed to find out that I was the only New Zealander to get one on Gallipoli, because hundreds of Victoria Crosses must have been won there.”