FIRST ON GALLIPOLI

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 12199, 10 March 1934, Page 9

FIRST ON GALLIPOLI

NO ONE CAN CLAIM HONOUR

COVERING PARTY’S TASK

Who was the first man ashore at the Anzao landing?

The question, raised IS years ago, lias not yet been co-rtplusivt-ly answered and probably never .will be, although'Dr. C. E. W. Bean An t he, supplementary preface to the. Official History names the late Lieut. Chapman; -of tbo . 9th Battalion for the honour. - . .

: “’GJiio of • tlie ffrivaling • Party” supplies the following version: ■ “No boat touched Anzac shore be-fore-a -shot was fired. As I bad. the honour of bciug one, cf • the -.eovei.ing party of .the 10th Bart, on Sunday morning, April, 25, r will give you. details of landing. A - WARNING ROCKET.', ; “Two hundred men were picked fi s the covering party. We were 011 H.M.S. Prince of Wales, ready for the landing and were paraded on deck during Saturday afternoon aiul told by Col. Weir that we bad 1° ”” ashore as oevoring party and '“’-d the beach at all costs UCI e ,lr oaltiillion arrived later, i “We took to our small boats about 2.30 a.m.. Fonday, and were packed like sardines. It was a beautiful calm morning, pitch black. • '“The small pinnaces started towing our small boats towards Auza n Reach. After we bad gone about-a mile up .went n rocket (rodff a ■'earning signal bv the Turk's, fired lr n m Fort Gaba. Tope.

'“This' was the first, sign we bad ot the enemy, and it was .not until alter that signal that the first shot was -fifed bv the Turks. “Then a few -stray shots came over, and in a few minutes a fusillade of rnacbine-g'un bullets came among us. Even tbe.n no boat had touched ihland. By that time we had to take t’nrv oars and row our own boats. It was just breaking dawn «s c-bed-BOATS ABREAST. “T fail to see bow nnv man i-a-n claim to have been the first to land as there were a number of the covering party boats pulling lor the shore almost abreast, amid a'- ha ip of ■bullets and in almost darkness. “It was impossible for any man to sav he was the first to land. It was after the covering party had landed that the battalions came ashore im daylight under a heavy barrage of shrapnel. I tb'nb f am right iJ*. saying that there are only a very few men alive to-day who were in the original covering party at Anzae.

“The boat that T was in had Donald Smith (only a lad), brother to Lieut. Talbot Smith, who was killed, and our boat touched Anzac Beach before Tdeut, Talbot Smith’s boat; yet I could not claim that. w p - were the fir-st boat to touch, tiff shore. “Any man who was with the original covering party on that memorable morning will corroborate mv statements.”