The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." MONDAY, APRIL 25, 1921. IMMORTAL ANZAC.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18161, 25 April 1921, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." MONDAY, APRIL 25, 1921. IMMORTAL ANZAC.

Gallipoli! Six years ago it was not even a name to nine-tenths of the world. Inside of nine months a hundred thousand men killed, wounded, captured—had written it in letters of blood and fire across the pages of history. The six short though crowded years that have passed since the morning of the famous landing, four of them years of frightful carnage, have contributed many glorious pages similarly written; but, by common acceptance, * we in New Zealand have decided that Anzac Day, the twenty-fifth of April, shall be preserved as the day worthy of our greatest national honour. Necessarily, and Quite properly, the day and the name that has been given to it commemorates first the splendidly heroic achievement of the men of the New Zealand Brigade (afterwards the New Zealand Division) and their comrades of the Ist A.I.F. and the 29th British Division in what at the time was described as “the most amazing feat of arms the world has seen or is likely to see.’’ The story of that immortal feat hasibeen told and told again, but it can never be told often enough. In all that has been written, however, there have been no | clearer descriptions than the con-

cise but graphic narrative' of General Sir lan Hamilton, the Commander-in-Chief. After depicting the precipitous slopes of the coast of the I peninsula and the few beaches towards the southern end of it, which afforded any hope of successful landing, he says: “Nothing but a systematic scheme for flinging the whole of the troops under my command very rapidly ashore could be expected to meet with success.” The landing of an army upon such a theatre of operations, “a theatre strongly garrisoned throughout and prepared for any such attempt, involved difficulties for which no precedent was forthcoming in military history, except possibly in the sinister legends of Xerxes.” The ships and troops were concentrated at Lemnos early in April. The 29th Division 'men were transferred from the transports to the navy ships off Tenedos, and the Australians and New Zealanders off Mudros. This was on April 24. The whole force arrived off the peninsula before dawn next day. The 29 th Division was flung ashore around the extreme end of the peninsula at five beaches about Cape Helles. They were met by a storm of fire, which, especially at the beach where the transport River Clyde was run ashore, cut the first landing parties to ribbons before they could touch land. No troops ever behaved more bravely than this British infantry which forced its way forward in shatered companies through shellfire and machine-gun fire and the bursting of land mines. The Australians and New Zealanders remember them with admiration in remembering their own story. For the landing at Anzac a rugged and difficult part of the coast had been selected. Anzac Beach “is a very narrow strip of sand, about 1000 yards in length, bounded on the north and south by two small promontories. At its southern extremity a deep ravine, with exceedingly steep scrub-clad sides, runs inland in a north-easterly direction.” (This was Shrapnel Valley.) “Near the northern end of the beach a small but steep gully runs up into the hills at right angles to the shore. Between the ravine and | the gully the whole of the beach is backed by the seaward face of the spur which forms the north-western side of the ravine. From the top of the spur the ground falls almost sheer except near the southern limit of the beach, where gentler slopes give access to the mouth of the ravine behind. Further inland lie in a tangled knot the under features of Sari Bair, separated by deep ravines which take a most confused diversity of direction. The boats from the ships bringing the first Australians ashore—the brigade chosen to lead was the 3rd Brigade, whose battalions contained men from all parts of Australia —approached in darkness and complete silence. The simplest reader of General Hamilton’s account can feel the tension of that dramatic interval. “They were close to the shore before the-enemy stirred. Then about one battalion of Turks (only half yisible the forms of them must have been) was seen running along the beach to intercept the lines of boats. At this so crinal moment the behaviour of all

ranks was most praiseworthy. Not a word* was spoken—everyone remained perfectly orderly and quiet awaiting the enemy’s fire, which sure enough opened, causing many casualties. The moment the boats touched land the Australians’ turn had come. Like lightning they leapt ashore, and each man as he did so went straight as his bayonet at the enemy." The Turks fled almost at once, and the Australians dashed after them in small scatered parties into the scrub and the ridges. It was an exciting series of little rushes, halts, rapid bursts of rifle fire into clumps of bush, and then scrambles forward to cut remaining Turks out of the pocket. The hillside ever stretching above them was sparkling and crackling with rifle flashes, and guns boomed out behind these again, splashing with shrapnel the beach and the navy ships in the offing. It was a stern trial for new troops, well trained though they had been in Egypt; for their training had accustomed them to collective work in companies and platoons, and now the battalions were all mixed up, and men fought and scrambled on in Selfformed groups. Officers and noncommissioned officers showed splendid leading, and fell thickly. "The broken ground, the thick scrub, the necessity for sending any formed detachments post haste as they landed to the critical point of the moment, the headlong valour of scatered groups of men who had pressed far further into the peninsula than had been intended—all these led to confusion and mixing up of units. Eventually the mixed crowd of fighting men, some advancing from the beach, others falling back before the oncoming Turkish supports, solidified into a semi-circular position, with its right about a mile north of Gaba Tepe, and its left on the high ground over Fisherman’s Hut.” This line (early afternoon) was formffid of the first landing 3rd Brigade (Sinclair Maclagan), and the Ist and 2nd Brigades (Mclaurin and McCay, respectively). After them was landed the Australian and New Zealand Division, consisting of two infantry brigades (Monash) and the New Zealand Brigade (Godley). The enemy attacked very heavily between 11 and 3 o’clock, on the front of the

3rd Brigade, and the left o£ the 2nd, and again between 5 and 6.30 the Turks threw a most determined assault upon the 3rd Brigade, but the hard-tested men of these battalions stood as firmly as veterans, and the Turks could not budge them. There was no rest all the night of the 25th from smaller spasmodic attacks. Such very briefly is the story of the landing, an outline which many a New Zealand family can now fill in with intimate details. It was not a tempered introduction to modern war such as new units later got in France. The Main Body of the N.Z.E.F. was put at once to the sternest possible test; but those who survived, and those who afterwards swelled the ranks, felt its value through all their subsequent experiences. At critical times again and again in France, when a stiff job had to be done or heavy bombardment had to be faced, the memory of Gallipoli not as a personal recollection but as a standard of conduct and endurance, and as a great reputation, stood the New Zealanders and Australians in good stead. Hamilton’s vivid sentence, "as straight as his bayonet at the enemy,” lived on as a potent inspiration. Hence the Somme, Passchendaele, Messines, all the horrors and hardships of that long nightmare on the Western Front, the gallantry of our mounted heroes in Palestine, and, indeed, every honourable and glorious achievement of our men in the Great War, shares in the pride and honour of Anzac Day.