ON GALLIPOLI.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 523, 13 October 1915, Page 3

ON GALLIPOLI.

A NEW LANDING. NEW ZEALANDERS IN A TIGHT CORNER. [From Malcolm Rosa, Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces.] [Mr Ross's latest war correspondence deals with operations which have been the subject of voluminous cable messages received weeks ago. A memo is attached to the message stating: that the "above letter has been heavily censored." Certainly the correspondence reads like it. As will be seen from the catchline, it sa over two months old.]

No. 3 Outpost, August 7.

For some weeks now the armies at Cape Holies have sat facing each other in the trenches. Since the big battle oh the Achi Baba front at the end of June—when, at considerable cost, the Allies gained 1000 yards—and the subsequent advance' of 400 yards, no movement of any importance has taken place. With the New Zealand and Australian forces facing the Turk on the rugged cliffs and ridges of Sari Bair, the same conditions have applied. The Australians, on the right, have sallied forth, and, in unimportant skirmishes, have taken a trench or two; but there hav# been no encounters except of minor importance. The threatened Turkish attack came to nothing. Not even Ramazan could induce the Turk to leave his trenches. For once religious fervour had to take a back seat to German tactics. "Yet all the time strategy and organisation were; marching stealthily but steadily toward a grand climacteric oh the Peninsula of Gallipoli. ; New Preparations. ._'..,,

By the end of July preparations were well in hand, and things were happening up and down the long line of conmiuiiications extending on the one hand from England, and on the other from-New Zealand and Australia. - Strange-looking craft like nothing ever seen before upon the face of the waters entered the harbours of islands iii the uEgean-j-that. once were.Turkish. These were the new Cruisers bristling with guns stood' off shore and bombarded the Turkish positions, not eating, apparently, about enemy submarines. Battleships, came, more warily into action, and sent their big shells hurtling into Asia, while our own submarines rose.gleaming like great porpoises beside the very quays of ,uonstantinople. Troopships and supplyships came and went. The water that .we drank and with which we shaved was fetched from London and Liverpool. We washed in sea water. The Ark Roy aV, with her seaplanes and the balloon-ships went bravely about their master's business, and the' Gulf of Saros was dotted with destroyers, and trawlers, and. drifters, jind steam pinnaces. Day in and day but they braved the enemy's shot and shell. And high above all these—often with the \vhite fleecy! puffs of bursting shrapnel dotting their winding courses—flew the graceful aeroplanes with their daring pilots and observers, mapping out the Turkish positions, and dropping bombs. It was interesting- to watch seven of them flying down the Dardanelles in the late evening, past Helles, and on to the island home. With such aids and adventures did we once more adjust our far-flung battle line.

A New Force.

In the midst of it all one day divisions of the King's new armies began to arrive—surfeited with a year's training; eager for action. They looked a likely lot—not possessing the Herculean strength of the Australians and the New Zealanders, hut sturdy and fit. None doubted that they would give a good account of themselves. With them came Gurkhas and Sikhs. The troops poured into Anzac Cove under the cover of darkness and deployed to right and left..

On the ev riihg before the great adventure there were some nervous bursts of rifle fire, as if the Turks h|ad a premonition of coming danger. The destroyers guarding our flanks us usual directed their waving searchlights athwart the Peninsula, and sent in an occasional shell. Farther south the flash of guns from the sea could be seen opposite the Krithiah Heights. A gentle south wind blew .and lightning played from ah angry cl oiid above Saniotjirace. Waking. \it 3 a.m.'one "noticed a waning crescent moon above the heights of "Anzac; the south wind had died down and the lightning had shifted from Samothrace to Imbros.

With dawn came pinnaces and drifters and trawlers, bursts of ride lire, and the occasional boom of a gun. .The enemy had seen some Indian troops landing in the early dawn, and they commenced to shell the little pier, Gurkhas and Sikhs came in two barges, waited for the word-to disembark, and then walked calmly off the wharf with rifles, haversacks, and all their other belongings, one mail trotting like a Chinaman with his bundles slung at either end of a pole balanced across his shoulder. A few Turkish shells fifed from the south fell short. Another gun from the north also failed to reach the mark. Their shells fell harmlessly into the sea, lashing the water into foam. Just above us from our back trenches on the crest of the steep yellow dirt' came the crackle of intermittent rifle lire, and the sharper pointed Turkish bullets in reply went with a melancholy whistling wail overhead.

A gun in the north with a high explosive shell began to get a better range on the landing, but still without effect. On the right another gun was Just missing a trawler. The vessel moved away slowly. One shell almost got her on .the waterline. Finally, brie liif her on the

deck for'ard, and a little cloud of black smoke arose. Slowly the trawler turned her nose to sea and steamed away out of range. She was not seriously damaged.

As the forenoon wore on a howitzer opened on us from the centre of the Turkish position, one shell bursting on the Indian cemetery in front of my dug-out, and shaking the earth down on my writing-pad. Some Indians digging a grave, escaped miraculously. One of them picked up a chunk of the burst casing from an adjacent mound, showed it to a companion, and went on digging the grave! Another of these howitzer shells burst with a loud noise and much dust and smoke amongst some men lower down the slope. One expected to see arms and legs flying and dead and wounded carried away. Strange to say, not a man was hit, and one New Zealander emerged from the cloud of smoke and earth and laughingly called out to his startled comrades: "Bring me a field dressing to bind up me bloomin' nerves!" All this noise, however, was but the prelude to the grand Wagnerian tumult of sound that later on was to strike terror into the heart of the Turk.

i Battering the 'Achi Baba Trenches. j. Looking towards Achi Baba early in the afternoon one saw that the Turkish trenches were getting a great battering. The wind /was in the wrong direction/and we could not hear the bombardment, but we could see the great bursts from the exploded shells rising high above the summit of Achi Baba itself. .The whole of the.available artillery seemed to be in quick action. A lengthy curtain of yellowish grey smoke rose from over the Turkish position, and drifted across the Dardanelles. Against this dull background the bursts of shrapnel, with a bluish tinge in their whiter puffs, were clearly seen. At intervals oneof ithe huge shells from the hew monitors ■would burst into a vast geyser-like column of blacker smoke and,earth. This, together with thev shraprief, would be blown with the wind arid gradually dissipated into the common cui'tain. "Lord help the poor Turk!" was a frequent expression among.'the watchers of this bombardment. Some of ,the Turkish shells were bursting near the edge of the cliff above the Lancashire landing, but the: enemy's guns were far fewer than ours, and his supply of am- j munition alsb, apparently, left much to be desired. The line of ships at j Helles was silhouetted in the clear j air against the horizon, and above; the line soared the big balloon, spot-i ting for the guns of the navy. j

New Battle Begins.

It was/.the. afternoon of Friday, August (5, and we had ascertained that a big attack was contemplated on the northern -Turkish position. There were also rumours of another landing on a large scale just to the '.north of. our farthest position on the extreme left;— No. 3 outpost held by the Otago Mounted Rides—-who hdd been for some time" in the trenches -i-and a number of the Maori contingent. As the New Zealanders were on the. left wing and that corner of the field promised to be specially interesting. I left Anzac in company with a general and one of his staff and walked through the long communication trench to the outpost. Punctually at 5 p.m. a howitzer tired the fust shot in the general bombardment that was to precede the attack. Battery after battery -came into action, and the Turkish guns replied. The shells from the French seventy-fives in possession, of the Turks, shrieked viciously over our heads at high velocity on their way to Anzac, and some of the intervening positions. The bombardment continued furiously for half an hour, and then the crackle of rifle-fire on the right came as an intimation that the Australian attack had begun. The banging of the guns, the rattle of rifle fire, and the intermittent popping of the machine-guns on both sides now made a great din. At the outpost the Otago colonel was preparing to lead his men into battle as soon as the shades of night .fell. He was, as ever, cheery and brave. In the dusk outside his dugout we sat and chatted of the prospects of the night attack. The men, he said, were . eager and in high spirits, though they knew there was stiff work ahead. We listened to two. of them soberly discussing, with a strong Scottish accent, the question of ( whether on the eve of a battle a man should shake hands with his chum or not. With the old Covenanter spirit they decided that there should be.no such good-byes. -Withthese words the gallant colonel buckled on his armour and went off with his regiment and a platoon of the Maoris into the darkness, ..He' succeeded in accomplishing the task that had been set out fur- him that night, and more. Sad to tell, lie was shot through the head and spine after a dashing charge, at the head of 150 of his men into a Turkish trench.

[The remainder of the story covers ground already traversed by telegraph.]