THE FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 17 July 1915, Page 8

THE FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES

SNIPERS AT WORK. THE MOUNTED IN THE FIRING LINE. (By Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with thi- N.Z. Forces.) May 26. ' 'lt would require more than one thick volume to chronicle half the deeds of heroisrr that have been done in this Dardanelles business. There is a young fellow here just now who was dusj out of some Departmental office dn Egypt, given the rank of captain, and puc in charge of a ship with a- man who could navigate. He is a cool, brainy fellow, not likely to dash into anything in a hurry, and not likely to lose his Jhead in any emergency. He would not thank me fcr mentioning his name. When the New Zealanders arrived at the Lardanelles they saw a steamer beached with a big hole in her, for'ard. But they did not know her story. It appears that she was torpedoed by the Turks during one rather daring adventure, and tht Greek crew, kim.viiig she would -sink, sooner or later, tt> k to the boats and left her. One of the British destroyers, however, chased them back into the ship, and the young captain and his navigator drove them to work again with iron spanners, or anything heavy and solid that came first to hand. The result was that they managed to beach the ship. She is now at Alexandria, being fitted up again, and Captain W. has, been able to take a run up to see his wife in Cairo, after between two and three months' strenuous work in the Dardanelles. In a few days he will be back at his job in that spot that all the world, but especially Egypt and the Near East, is now watching with so intense an interest. TRENCH WARFARE.

I have already explained that they have no use for our horses on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The -country is entirely unsuited for cavalry or mounted infantry, soh' ere j as elsewhere, it is likely to *be largely a question of trench warfare. General Maxwell, whom I saw this afternoon, emphasised that point. More men will be wanted, and what they shoiild be taught, ie digging and shooting. They must, of course, be "fit," and they must have learnt discipline; but digging and shooting should be the watchwords of future reinforcements. The entrenching tool which the New Zealanders used to tell themselves would be one of the first things they would - discard is now held in possession with an almost sacred reverence. As a lance-corporal put it, a man would go all day without his trousers rather than be without his entrenching tool. The little heap of dirt you make in front of yourself- with it is worth a pound an ounce. It is the most valuable bit of j dirt in all the world! CO-OPERATION WITH THE j NAVY.

It seems certain now that the Navy could never have forced the Dardanelles •without an adequate landing force. The little force they themselves were able to land at first was rather badly cut up, among the killed being Anthony Wilding, the famous lawn tennis chairuion from New Zealand. Even with the cooperation of naval and forces the ■ capture of the Dardanelles is, a lough ; job. Such united action in' the recent operations seems on the whole to have been very effective. One instance of splendid co-operation was told me by an eye-witness. ■ The warships off the coast were concentrating a very heavy fire oh one particular section of the Turkish trenches, the, idea being that when the bombardment ceased the colonials were to storm the trenches at the point of the bayonet. For three-quarters of an hour shell after shell was pouged into the Turks, our men advancing« by short rushes till they got close up. At the critical moment the. warships and our field guns suddenly ceased firing, and the colonials launched their attack across the lately shell-swept ground, and /with the bayonet soon finished most of the Turks that remained alive. This was an ideal attack, the co-operation being perfect. The ships had been shelling overourmen at a range of over 4000 yards.

SIGNALLING. The • signalling* in, such a case would probably have been done by big flag wagging. The three wireless stations erected by the Australians' were o most valuable. -. The operators worked calmly among the wounded, with the shrapnel bursting over them; The heliograph was also used, but more useful still were the searchlights of the warships, which .could' Morse effectively for miles, even in daylight. The helio is more secret, but its scope is more limited, for at a distance.' of about two miles its radius •is only a few. yards wide. Visual signalling was largely done away with, because whenever a man stood up to signal he would be shot. Often messages were conveyed down the line by word of mouth, one section-yelling them out to another 'till they reached their destination. INFLUENCE OF THE GERMANS.

The German training and leadership has undoubtedly made a vast difference upon the Turkish Anry. The Turks are up to all the German tricks, but our men. soon dropped to, most of them, and took such measures, as were possible to counteract them. Such Turks as shammed wounded in the taken trenches and then fired at the backs of our men after they, had passed, or on our wounded at close quarters, got short shrift. The Turkish, guns "were well concealed, and some of their snipers even had the faces painted green, and held or tied a green branch in front of ■their heads as a v sci*een. After a time some of our men adopted the branch idea of screening themselves -when, they -were stalking the snipers, and it was a pathetic sight sometimes, during the advance, to see a New Zealander.or an Australian lying dead with little bunches of box or holly stuck through his cap. "It had a sort of Christmassy" effect," said one : of the wounded. Often, added this man, ; you would see a bush, moving ©lowly along quite, near you. You knew at once that you had to fire right into the centre of that. At other times you would see a Turkish-face and a pair of eyes through the greenery, and then it was * question of who got his shot or his bayonet in quickest. During the first day or. two I s, fighting the Turkish fire positions were cleverly screened, and our men saw very little of then?. Neither did fiey see many of the enemy, except when the latter made occasional rushes j to change to another position.

Once tne New 2ealandere ascertained the position' of some Turkish snipers in the fisherman's hut—a position they could not reach. Word was, however, sent by Major Loach, via the Signal Corps and the beach wireless, to the> warships, and one of the latter soon opened fire and cut a few holes in the landscape; but it was the New Zealand howitzer battery—by this time landed and well dug in—that fron? a range of about 4000 yards, sent the fisherman's hut into the air in a cloud of dust. They lobbed a shell right into it.

WOMEN SNIPERS One met with, frequent stories of women snipers in the Turkish, lines, but it was always difficult to get first-hand information about tli£/m. A wounded j Australian whom I met yesterday gave ■ me an instance that had come under his notice. These particular snipers—and no doubt many others"also —had silencers on their Mauser rifles. The advancing party therefore- hoard only the ping of the bullet near them, and a sound like ' the crack of a whip. On this particular ' occasion they located a sniper close at hand, and went to look for him. There was another "ping !'' and one of the men fell dead. Suddenly the party came j upon two snipers, who held up their rifles in token of surrender. Their rifles were taken from them, their hands tied behind their backs, and they were marched down to the beach. They were wearing the uniforms of dead Australian soldiers, and' they had about 2000 rounds of ammunition near them, and enough food to last a 'fortnight. A doctor who examined them at headquarters found that they were both women ! On the following day these Australians had to cross a gully on their right flank, and there they found five of their dead comrades, stripped of all their clothing, even to the boots. The man who told me this incident h-jd been in the thick of the fighting >frathe first fortnight,' and on more: than on-e occasion he saw the German officer.? driving on the Turks with revolver and sword. BRAVE DEEDS.

The same man did -not wish to say much about his own exploits. He, however,: gave the following instances of he roic action by others that had' come under ..his- notice. One soldier working a machine gun was hit .by a 'bullet _ that just grazed his intestine. He continued to work the gun. Then a bullet got him in the right arm", which was disabled; but he commenced to fire with his left hand. A 'fourth bullet got him fair in the forehead. My informant did not even know the man's name. He. had brought his Maxim mp in a charge into the firing line through the open. It was a gun of the 10th Battalion'.

"Our sergeant," continued the narrator, "was wounded twice, but went on calmly giving orders. First of all, bis binoculars were knocked out of his hand bv a bullet or a piece of shrapnel. Then he got a slight wound along the temple. Someone, suggested that he should get out of tile firing line to receive first aid, but he replied, 'No ; I'll carry on as long as I can; I want to get even with the ■beggars.' They again urged him to getout, but he merely laughed and said it .would be all right. Ten yards farther on lie was shot through the spine, and in half an hour .he was dead. He was a machine gun sergeant belonging to the 4tli Battalion." THE MOTJNTEDB AND THE FOOT SLOGERS.

The New Zealand moimted men have left their horses behind them and have gone to the 'front as infantry. "By •jo%'e, they will go into it heart and' soul," said a wounded man to me this afternoon. "Why?" I asked. "Because," he replied, "of the way our chaps have been treated."

There is, of course, always a kind of natural enmity between the horseman and the foot slogger. The mounted men used to look down on the infantry, and jokingly refer to them as "beetle-crush-ers." And in Egypt the mounted men certainly had the "best endi of the stick in eo far as the training went. The infantry had to go through a very severe ordeal indeed. Along the HeliopolisSuez road they did many a weary mile under the hot Egyptian sun. Sometimes they' did route-marches of 20 miles. One day ihey did 25 miles by the map- over soft desert eand with packs, rifles, and equipment weighing', between 501b and 701b! Some days they thought they would never last it out. They thought it absolute hell. But they never complained, and somehow they always managed to do it. They would come back in the evening, with eyebrows and eyelashes and such hair as' was uncovered absolutely white. They were the weirdest looking soldiers imaginable. But they stuck it out. They took it as part of the game. On this Suez Toad there are at certain intervals. some old watch-towers 'built hundreds of years ago. One •of the most usual marches was out to the third watch-tower and .back. The men got to hate that tower with an unforgettable hate. They used to see it in their dreams. One night, ae the New Zealanders were marching back, they were met by some Australians going out on a bivouac. They asked where the New Zealandera had been. They replied : "To the third tower." "Where are you going?" asked- a New Zealander. "To the third tower," was the reply. "But it won't be so bad next weekj were going to push it six miles • nearer camp to-night!'- " • When the troops were leaving Zietoun for Lemnos, at the Dardanelles, everybody thought and said: "Well, thank God, there will be no more third tower !" But a wag in the Mounteds came up and asked : "Have you seen what the Brigadier has got in the guard's van?" "No," answered the "beetle-crusher," "what is it?" "It's the old third tower; he's taken it to pieces and packed it up," was the reply. Once aboard the troopships the men knew they were really done with the old tower. But at Lemnos they landed for a route march, and they had not gone far before they came upon an exactly similar tower! They all seemed, to see it at once; hut it was left to a _ man in the ranks to neatly sum up the situation. "Good Lord,'' he cried, "There's the old third tower; it's beaten us here !" When the foot-sloggere went away to the Dardanelles and the mounteds had to remain 'behind, it was the latter who came in for the chaff. They were promptly designated "The Sultans Bodyguard!" "My word, you'll have a fine time in. Cairo trotting the Sultan, around," was the last thrust of a departing "beetle-crusher." But the mounteds were just dying to get into it, and- when the time came they did not even mind leaving their horses behind them. Scnce then they have been in the thick of it, shoulder to shoulder with the foot-slog-gers, and many a good man among- them will'never see his horee again'. ..They wen* bravely forward to avenge the deaths of comrades who had gone before, and bravely they hav'e given their all for King and Country. . Far awav from his beloved horse —now idle in the desertcamp at Zeitoun—many a rider has padded the hoof along the roadi into the Great Unknown.