LANDING AT GALLIPOLI

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 April 1935, Page 9

LANDING AT GALLIPOLI

MEMORABLE FEAT OF ARMS HISTORIC EVENT 20 YEARS AGO FATEFUL SUNDAY MGRNING.

Twenty years have passed since the landing at Anzac. Sunrise at the Dardanelles on- that unlorgettablo Sunday morning—the first Anzac Day —was due at a quarter past five, and the first .streak of dawn at five minutes past four. During the hour of inky darkness that preceded the dawn the faint night breeze died suddenly and the surafec of the Aegean grew smooth and still as giass. In face of the coming drama, the -very elements appeared to hold their breath. Phe drama was .enacted upon the most historic of all stages for a noble feat of arms.

In the scheme of operations against Gallipoli Peninsula, the task allotted to the Australian and Now Zealand Army Corps was to make a landing north »of the headland of Gab a Tepe, and to push eastward across the pen-insula-to Maid-os with a view to severing tile-Turkish north arid'south communications.: The Anzac covering force consisted of.the.3rd Australian Infantry Brigade.

DEPARTURE FROM MUDROS. At 2 p.m. on April 24, H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth led the line out of Mudros Harbour. Behind her steamed the battleships Queen, Triumph, Prince of Wales, London and Majestic- and the cruiser Bacchante. After them canie seven destroyers and the four transports of the 3rd Brigade, 1300 of whom had previously been embarked in three of the battleships. An hour after dark the convoy was close under the island of Imbros and at 11 o’clock the destroyers went alongside the transports and embarked 25Q0 soldiers. At 1 a.m., midway between Imbros and the Peninsula, the battleships transferred, their troops to the boats which were to be towed ashore by the warships’ steamboats. As the moon sank behind Imbros at 3 o’clock, the three battleships, followed by the twelve tows, anti, further astern bv the seven destroyers, steamed slowly towards the Peninsula. Shortly before 3.30 a.m.,»when the attendant ships were within two or three miles from t-he shore, they .stopped and the picket-boats crept on with their tows. In the black darkness it was so- difficult for the tows to see each other that they insensibly bunched together. The northerly current , along the coast was stronger than the sailors had realised, and the tows were imperceptibly carried a full mile to the north of the .selected landing place, Ari Burnu being mistaken for Gaba Tepe. It waS at 4.30 a.m. when the | Australians landed on or about Ari Burmu. The first bullets were striking sparks out of the shingle as the first- boats reached the shore. Each boat landed where it could, resulting in a serious intermixing of units from the very start. The surprise had been complete, but the fire was increasing fast and not a few of the boats suffered casualties.

DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES. Though a naval officer’s prompt action had halved the error, the -unfortunate .swing to the left of the boats was to bear disastrous consequences. At any time the precipitous ridges and tortuous ravines which formed the first Australian anti New Zealand battlefield are an arduous climb for an active ancl unarmed man, while the steep scrub-covered gullies are so confusing that it is easy to lose one’s way. For the soldiers that- morning the forbidden slopes, were not only unknown, but entirely unexpected. They had been told that they would find" a low sandy bank skirting the beach, under cover of which they were to form up by companies before rushing across the 209 yards -of level, ground to the first hill. But the necessity of pushing straight ahead at all costs had been so impressed upon t.he men that in a remarkably short time eager parties of all three battalions, without waiting to sort themselves out, had scrambled to the top -of Plugge’s Plateau. Meanwhile, by 4.4 Q a.m. the seven destroyers! had begun to disembark their men on • a somewhat broader front, but under heavy fire, many being killed or wojinded before they reached the shore By 7 -o’clock, with the exception of a- few snipers, all opposition on the second ridge hacl ceased. and scattered parties were in undisputed possession of the crest. A few small parties had even reached various points on the western slopes of the final obective of ; the covering force. One officer with two scouts had actually penetrated to a- knoll whence he could see, only three and a half miles away, the gleaming waters of thq Narrows—the goal of the whole campaign. ' But ultimately these gallant fellows had to .retire.

NEW -ZEALANDERS ASHORE. All day long the grim work of landing the Australians and New Zealanders went on under heavy and increasing fire. Shortly after 10 o’clock oneand a half battalions of the N.Z. Infantry Brigade, the Auckland Battalion and two companies of the Canterbury Battalion, were landed and quickly swallowed up in the maze of ravines. The remainder of the New Zealanders, including the Wellington Battalion, began to land about 5 o’clock in the afternoon. By 6 o’clock some 15,000 troops had been disembarked. Every available man had been hurried into battle, and, for a. moment, there were no reserves. A comparatively favourable beach had been secured; the troops occupied a position which, except at one point where a dangerous gap existed, was practicable for defence; and, finally, they had succeeded in beating off a series of counter-attacks. Their casualties, which amounted to over 2000, had been heavy; but the Turks, too, had suffered equally as heavily, and were far more disorganised. Seldom indeed has t’Jie mettle of inexperienced troops been- subjected, to a more severe test than was that of thei citizen soldiers of Australia and New Zealand on tbeir first day of act-

ive ‘service ,wrote the official historian of the Gallipoli Campaign. Hazardous as a landing on ail unknown shore must always be, the task of the 3rd Australian Brigade was made still more arduous by the .unfortunate chance which carried it. to a landing place of unexpected and unexampled severity. The battle which then began cannot be judged by, the standards of any ordinary attack, where the troops, carefully assembled beforehand, .start from a. definite line at a definite zero hour. Arriving piecemeal in boats, landing under fire where best, they could, wading ashore in the dark, finding themselves in many cases confronted unclimbable cliffs, hunting for a practicable line of ascent, and then scrambling up a difficult hillside covei’ed with prickly scrub, it would have been hard indeed for units to avoid disintegration. • • • Individual groups of high-mettled men flung themselves forward on their own initiative; platoons and companies became fatally intermixed; and the plans for each battalion’s .special task fell hopelessly to hi ts.

Taking all these factors into consideration it may well bo doubted whether even a division of. veteran troops could have carried out a co-ordinated attack at Anzac on April 25, 1915. The predominant feeling which that astounding battlefield must always arouse in the military student who visits it, will be a sense of unstinted admiration for those untried battalions who did so exceedingly well. The magnificent physique, the reckless daring and the fine enthusiasm of the Dominion troops qn their first .day of trial went far to counteract anything they lacked in training" and war experience. The story of tlieir landing will remain for all time among the proudest traditions cf the Australian and New Zealand forces.