BATTLE OF SARI BAIR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16040, 5 October 1915, Page 9

BATTLE OF SARI BAIR.

NOBLE ACT OF HEROISM.

AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE.

CHARGE TO "CERTAIN DEATH." "For sheer self-sacrificing heroism there was never a deed in history that surpassed the charge which the two Australian Light Horse brigades made in the first light of Saturday, August 7, in order to help their comrades in a critical moment of a great battle," says Captain C. E. I W. Bean, official press representative with the Australian Expeditionary Forces, in writing from Gaba Tepe under date, August 15, of the charge made by the < Australian Light Horse during the open- 1 ing stages of the fight for Sari Bair. ] The charge, which was made against . the centre of the Turkish position, was J a very small part of a very big move- ' ment. All through the night came outhursts of rifle-firing—first from fairly close at hand, where the New Zealand Mounted Rifles and the Maoris, amidst wild, fierce fighting, wore clearing the Turks out from redoubt after redoubt amongst their strongly-held positions in the nearer foot- : hills. When the order to "go" came from i Lieutenant-Colonel A. H. White and two other officers at four o'clock, the men were over the parapet like a flash, the colonel amongst them, the officers in line with the men. " I shall never forget that moment," says Captain Bean. " I was making my way along a path from the left of the area, and was passing not very far away when the tremendous fusillade from the Turkish rifles broke out. . . . One knew that nobody could live in it. Many fell back into the trench, wounded just outside, and managed to crawl back and tumble in before they were hit a second and third time and killed. Practically all those that were wounded were hit in this way on our own parapet. Colonel White managed to run Svds or 10yds before he was killed. The two scaling ladders taken by the men are lying out there about the same distance out. Exactly two minutes after the first line had cleared the parapet, the second line jumped out without the slightest hesitation and followed it. In the Enemy's Trenches. "No ono knew how it happened. And probably no one will ever know. But some, either of that first line or the second, managed to get into the extreme right-hand corner of the enemy's trench. They carried with them a small flag to put up in the enemy's trench if they capt tured it.. The flag was to be the signal [ for a party of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers , |to attack up the gully "to the right. Two i' men were put in the head of one of our , foremost saps with periscopes to watch for the first sign of this flag in the. enemy's trench. . . It was next to im- ' possible to distinguish anything in the haze" created by the awful fire. But in I the extreme south-eastern corner of the Turkish position there did appear just ! for ten minutes the small flag which our , party had taken. No one ever saw them get there. No one will ever know who!, they were, or how they did it.. Only for those ten minutes the flag fluttered up behind the parapet, and then someone tore it down. The fight in the corner of j. the trench, whatever' it was, was over; j and it can only have ended one way. | "In the meantime, ten minutes after the second line, the third line had gone over the parapet as straight and as quick as the other. The attack was then, stopped, and fortunately in time to prevent a small part of this . third, line from reaching the fire zone. There; was one point where our trenches were j under a part /pi the slope, and the men had to crawl out some ten yards or so , before they put up their heads into the j torrent of lead. A dozen or two were j stopped here before they made their rush. Only a Quarter of an Hour. "It was all over within a-quarter of an hour. Except for this wild fire, which burst out again at intervals, there was not a move in the front of the trenches only the scrub and the tumbled khaki here and there. All day long the brilliant sun of a perfect day poured down upon them from a cloudless sky. That night after dark one or two maimed , figures appeared over our parapet, and j tumbled home into the trench. They' were men who had" fallen wounded in i some corner where there was a scrap of ; cover, and had waited for this chance ] to get back. One of these, who was shot' through the ankle, came from below the j parapet of a Turkish trench on the right, j He had lain there all day. too close for j the Turks to see him without exposing themselves. i themselves. .Attack From Quinn's Post.

" So much for the charge of the Third Light Horse Brigade. The second Regiment was to attack from Quinn's Post in four lines of 50 each. The first line wa s led by Major T. J. Logan. They scrambled from the trenches the instant the signal was given, but more than half were actually knocked back killed or wounded into the trench before they were clear of the parapet. The first few out managed to reach a few yards before they were killed. They left their trenches "at two points, and they had only from 15 to yards to go. Major Logan, who led th*» party, is said actually to have reached the Turkish parapet and fallen on to it. Lieutenant Bourne, who led' the other, fell about 10 yards from our trench. The boy 'who fell beside him had his leg practically severed by machine-gun bullets. The Turkish machine-guns drew a line across-that narrow space that none could pass. As the whole-of the first line was either killed or wounds within a few seconds, the attack was stopped and the ! other lines did not start. " The place." says Captain Bean in conclusion, " will always be sacred as the scene of two very brave deeds, the first let us not forsret —the desperate attack made by the Turk across that same neck on the dawn of June; 30, and. secondly, of a deed of self-sacrifice and bravery which has never been surpassed in milij tary history— charge of the Australian Light Horse into certain death at the call of their comrades' need during a crisis in the greatest battle that has ever been fought on Turkish soil."