WAR RECOLLECTIONS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3750, 1 May 1936, Page 12

WAR RECOLLECTIONS

MEMORIES REVIVED ON ANZAC DAY. Writing from Auckland on Anzac Day, “Digger,” a New Zealander, who served in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment, AJ.F., gives an interesting description of happenings and personal experiences during the Great War. He refers first to troops of the Anzac Mounted Division moving in extended formation during the attack on one of the Turkish positions at Rafa, near the southern border of Palestine, at daybreak on .January 9th, 1917, and he comments that the battle lasted all day, the Turks fighting stubbornly, tenaciously holding their strongly fortified positions against the combined attacks of the Anzac Mounted Divisions, Camel Corps, and a division of British infantry. Lack of adequate cover resulted in heavy casualties in the attacking forces. By sundown every man in the force was nearly exhausted, and parched through lack of drinking water. The precariousness of their position became more evident when an aeroplane message brought word that a strong force of Turkish reinforcements was advancing rapidly, under cover of the growing darkness, from Shellal, to the support of the Turks at Rafa. It looked as though the British forces would be compelled to withdraw, with fhe Turkish positions untaken. In fact, a message had just been received from the G.O.C. ordering a concerted withdrawal, when the N.Z. Mounted Rifles, operating on the immediate right of the 2nd Light Horse, charged with fixed bayonets, taking by storm the position known as “Main Ridge ” —the most formidable of the Turkish works at Rafa. This proved the signal for a concerted bayonet attack along the whole line on the Turkish positions, which fell one after another in quick succession. The rounding up of prisoners, removal of wounded, and burial of the dead, was effected hastily; and the march back to El Arish had ‘barely commenced before the arrival of strong reinforcements of Turks from Shellal. The writer goes on to paint a vivid word picture of a front-line headquarters establishment, and “ Pimple Hill,” near by, which was much in the news concerning the battle of Goraniyeh, on April Ith, 1918. It was near *-he bridge-head on the estem bank of the Jordan River, in Palestine. The attack was launched by the Turks before daylight, and directed mainly at the Anzacs positions. The sector at “ Pimple Hill ” was manned by only a few squadrons of the Anzac Mounteds, and it was estimated that they were greatly outnumbered by the attacking Turks. However, the fire of the British mountain batteries was so deadly, inflicting such heavy casualties upon the Turks, that the attack was practically broken before noon.

Nevertheless, the Turks stuck tenaciously to the forward positions they had gained. From secure “ possies ” their machine guns kept up a withering fire, inflicting casualties continually throughout the day. Finally, under cover of darkness, they retired to the foothills, having lost about half the attacking force in killed, wounded and prisoners. Another reference is to the crosses erected over soldiers’ graves in the Sinai-Palestine campaign of 1916-18. Very many graves mark the progress of the campaign—all the way from Kantara, on the Suez Canal, through the sandy wastes of Sinai and the plains of Palestine, right through to the ancient city of Damascus, in Syria. They are a perpetual reminder of the dread cost of war—both in cutting short of countless young lives and in the consequent life-long sorrow to grieving mothers, sisters and wives.