FORCING THE DARDANELLES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXV, Issue 10713, 3 June 1915, Page 5

FORCING THE DARDANELLES.

HEAVY TURKISH LOSSES.

(Received Juno 2, 1 p.m.) LONDON, June 1. The"Press Bureau states: Prisoners who have arrived from Egypt declare that the Turkish losses on GallipoTi Peninsula were terribly heavy. The 20th regiment was almost annihilated. All the officers except the <:olonel were killed or captured. The 15th and 56th regiments suffered almost as severely. The loss of officers was generally very heavy; the gape have had to be filled up by naval officers and military oadtets. The attacks on Krithia were mostly costly for the Turks. Liman Pasha ordered an attack at night with empty magazines, the Turks using the bayonet only. The Allies, flares and searchlights repeate.lly caught them in close formation, and machine gun and rifle fire at joinfblank range punished them terribly. A captured, officer said that only 120 men could be collected out of a

regiment originally a thousand strong. The Allies' mountain guns more than once caught the Turks when they were assembling for an. attack, and kept them for several minutes under shrapnel fire, inflicting heavy losses. An Arab officer said: "The landing was costly and difficult, but when the Allies were established ou the Peninsula it was our t urn to •suffer heavier losses. He wa-3 captured a fortnight ago. The Turkish losses were then at least 40,000 killed and wounded. - Other prisoners stated that two Turkish battalions attacked each other at Gaba Tepe, losing heavily, and ultimately stampeding. The British machine guns fire was particularly well directed, but the naval guns were most effective, the nearest shells, bursting in the trenches, paralvsed the men nearby. Some of the prisoners admit that they did not know in the least why Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey went to war. Others curse the Germans heartily.