ENEMY GUNS ON ANZAC.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144776, 4 September 1915, Page 4

ENEMY GUNS ON ANZAC.

'A VARIETY IN SHELLS. OUR OWN ARTILLERY. (From Malcolm Ross, Official .Correspondent of the N.Z. Forces.) ANZAC, July 1, 1915. For-some few days there has been persistent shelling of the Anzac position ifcy a variety of enemy guns, and recently, a 4-inch gun has opened on us from a new position in the south. It fires from south of Gaba Tepe on a range of 6000 yards. The shells come very fast, some with a shrapnel charge arid others bursting the shell into fragments with a high explosive. Then there is the gnn. which,shell* us from the direction of the village of Anafarta on our left flank. Here there are two or three field guns firing at ? range of 5600 yards. They are 15-opunders, and their shells when coming give you plenty of warning, so that you generally have plenty of time to duck-for cover. You'hear the report of the firing, then in two or three seconds the whistling noise that the shell makes in coming through the air, and, in another two seconds or so, the explosion of the bursting shell. This gun has been doing .far more damage than any of the other guns, because it cannot be located in the very difficult terrain in which it operates, and it is impossible to silence it. There arc., away beyond our left fl§mk, a lot of low ridges, behind any one of which it might be hidden, and searching for it at present would be simply a, waste of ammunition. Sometimes this gun moves round more to the north. From the south in the early days of the occupation of Anzac they, used to get one or two big shells from the Asiatic side—shells ot about 8 inches—and an 11-inch shell also fell in the bay quite close in. None of these heavy gentlemen have, however, been making their appearance for some weeks past. They probably come from the guns of the Goeben. One portion of our left can he got in enfilade by the Anafarta guns; also heavy guns from behind Hill 971 and the summit of SariBair in al northeasterly direction from a range of 4500yds; and also by French ‘‘seventy-fives’’-in the vicinity of Battleship Hill, a subsidiary peak on the range three-quarters of the way to Hill 971. These French guns have been engaged,by,our howitzers. With thei exception of tlj,e Anafarfa guns—whicty cannot be locaied—and the heavy guns, it only requires a very tew rounds from our batteries to make the enemy guns cease fire. The Turks, spurred on by the Germans, however, are very eneegetic in shifting their guns, and display a good deal of ingenuity in their methods. The result is that we generally get shelled two or three times a day, -and often- lose a few men. We, how’evar, must maintain our position. The* Turks have a wide field m which to operate, and never stand being sheller kr return. Under euch circumstances ces, they lie low, or clear out, and, for fear of discovery, they never fire at night. One of our positions is shelled by a little mountain gun from a point, black range of from 600 to 1000 yards. .We reply by howitzer fire, one round of which usually shuts the little fellow up. There are similar guns to these on Johnston’s Jolly and Lonely Fine to the south, .quite close to our fire trenobes. The Turks have quite a lot' of gun emplacemtnts, and our gunners never know from which one they are going to fire.- Somewhere in the Olive Grove there to the south is a field gun and at least one heavy howitzer which the Australians engage. The KilidBahr guns are 9000 yards from us.

OUR OWN ARTILLERY. A walk round our position is a revelation of the wonderful ingenuity of our Engineers and the enormous amount of work done by our men in trenchdigging. In places there is a perfect maze of trenches. Even the “oldest inhabitants”—men who have been in residence at Anzac for nine weeks—are apt to lose their way in them when seeking a particular observation post or a particular gun. One day I had a look round our gun positions. Here again one could not fail to note tiie energy and the ingenuity displayed. The howitzers and field gans had been dragged to points that seemed almost inaccessible. One cannot, of course, go into details about the position of pur guns. .We climbed a short slope, dived down into a valley past mules in charge of Indians, and came to a spot from which we could sco the Turkish lines, and were in danger of being hit by an enemy bullet. Then we climbed by a winding zig-zagging path to the summit of a steep hill upon which was a perfect maze of trenches where Australians and New Zealanders were keeping their twenty-four hours’ vigil until another lot of men should let them off to sleep. Soma men were asleep in tiny covers scooped oat of the trench sides; others were cooking a meal, brewing their tea or frying a hit of bacon over a brushwood fire. Two things impressed the stranger—the numberless flies and the smell of humanity that pervaded this over-populous warren. But everybody seemed nappy and ready for any emergency. It was the heat of the day, and there was little doing. The Turk likes sipsta, and, except for the outlooks, he was probably asleep all along the line. A few bullets hit the parapet or came whistling overhead. Our men scarcely troubled to reply. By devious ways we walked in the narrow trenches to the observation post of a battery which was going to fire. Through the narrow, well-protected and well-screened peep-hole we could see just beyond our own lines and the Turkish trenches a scrub shelter, about which, asdisr in the day, some Turks had been men. This had been christened by the Australians “The Mi-mi.” The battery opened fire, the first shot going high and a Kttle to the right. Corrections sere duly made by the man in the ob.wvation post, and presently a well-di-rected shot planted right into the Mimi, and it went up in a- cloud of dust. It is all very wonderful this indirect fire, because the man who is doing the actual firing sees_ nothing of what he is firing at. While we were watching anon four howitzers firing a 100-pound Shelf also opened fire. We could see Bn-auiA from start to finish of the

great arc it described. It grounded near the Mi-mi and sent a cloud of earth and smoke into the air. The Turkish guns replied with shrapnel and bursting shell. -This shooting over, we Trent by tortuous ways to another post. Here we were under fire and 1 1 ad to bo careful. The Turkish trenches were but.2oo yards away, and a head shown above the parapet was almost sure to be hit. Even as we observed the bullets were hitting the sandbags a couple of feet away from our heads. From some of these vantage points the views were so wonderfully beautiful that one could not help gazing in admiration in momentary forgetfulness of the bullets that were whistling past or hitting the protecting sand-bags. The bosky dells and glades of the Peninsula stretched north and south and east. Westward were headlands jutting into the sea with silvery, curving beaches in between ; and still farther westward Imbros and Samothrace in the glorious calm blue of the Saros Sea. From the contemplation of this scene we descended to a battery in the lower lands, and an officer showed us chunks of shell that had been blown into it by high explosive a few minutes before our arrival. We got back to the beach to find that things had been very merry there. Some men had been killed and others wounded by the shelling. I picked up a 4-inch shrapnel shell that had landed within a couple of yards of the dug-out that some Turkish’ prisoners were making for my own habitation! Still, one could not forget those beautiful views—charms in the midst of Tvar—an dlooking down upon Anzac beach one saw men bathing as nonchalantly as if shells had never been invented and there were no war in the wide world.