WAR SKETCHES FROM GALLIPOLI

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2517, 19 July 1915, Page 9

WAR SKETCHES FROM GALLIPOLI

DISPATCH FROM THE NEW ZEALAND - CORRESPONDENT

THE TASK AHEAD

(By Malcolm Eoss, Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces.) May 26. • It would 1 require more than one thick volume to chronicle half • the deeds of horoism that have been dono in this Dardanelles business. There is a. young fellow hero just now who was dug out of some Departmental office in Egypt, given tho rank of captain, and put in charge of a ship with a man who could navigate. He is a. cool, brainy fellow, riot .likely to dash into anything in a hurry, and not likely to lose his head in any emergoncy. Ho would not thank mo for mentioning his name. When tho New Zealanders arrived at the Dardanelles they f-aw a steamer beached with a big hole in her, for'ard. But t'hoy did not know licr story. It appears that she was torpedoed by tho Turks' during one rather daring adventuro, and the Greek crew, knowing she would sink sooner or later, took to the boats and left her. One of the British destroyers, however, chased them back into the ship, and the young captain aiid_ his navigator drove them to work ■ again with iron spanners or anything heavy and solid, that came first to hand. The result was that they managed to beach the ship. She is now at Alexandria, being fixed up again, and Captain W. has been able to take a run up to see, liis wife in Cairo, after between two and three months' strenuous work in the Dardanelles. In a few days he will be back at his job in that spot that all the world, but especially Egypt p.nd the' Near East, is now watching with so intense an. interest. •

Trench Warfare. They have 110 use for our horses on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The country is entirely unstiited for cavalry or mounted infantry, so here, as elsewhere, it is likely to be largely a question of trench warfare. General Maxwell, whom I saw this afternoon, emphasised that point. More men will he wanted, and What they should bo taught is digging and shooting. ' They must, of course, be "fit," and they havo learnt discipline ; but digging and shooting- should be the watchwords of future reinforcements. The 'entrenching tool which the New Zealanders used to tell themselves would bo one of tlio first things they, would discard is now held in possession with an almost'sacred reverence. As a, lancocorporal put it, a man would go all day without his trousers rather than be without his entrenching tool. The ...little Jieap of dirt you make in front of yourself with,it is worth a pound an ounce. It is tho most valu« able bit of dirt in all the world!

Co-operation With The Navy. It seems certain now that the Navy could never have forced the Dardanelles without an adequate landing force. The little force thoy themselves were able to land at first was rather badly cut up. Even with the cooperation of naval and military - forces the capture of thq Dardanelles is a tough job. Such united action in tho Tecent operations seems on the whole to have been very effective. One instance of splendid co-operation was told me by an eye-witness. .The warships off the. coast were''coiiceutrating a very heavy fire on one particular section of the Turkish trenches, the idea being that when the bombardment ceased tho colonials were to storm the trenches at the point of the bayobet, For three-quarters of an

hour shell after shell was poured into the Turks, our men advancing by short rushes till they got close up. At tho critical moment the warships and our field guns suddenly ceased firing, and the colonials launched their attack across the lately shell-swept ground, and with tho bayonot soon finished l most of tho Turks that remained alive. This was an idea] attack, the co-operation being perfect. Tho ships had been shelling over our men at a range of 4000 yards.

j Signalling. I The signalling ill such' a case would probably have been done by big flag wagging. The three wireless stations erected by the Australians were most valuable. The operators worked calmly among tho wounded, with tho shrapnel bursting over them. Tlio heliograph was also used, but moro useful still were tho searchlight 6 of tho warships, which could Morse effectively for miles, even in daylight. The hclio is more secret, but its scope is more limited, for at a distance of about two miles its radius is only a few yards wide. Visual signalling was largely done away with, becauso whenever a man stood up to signal he would be shot. Often messages were conveyed down the lino by word of mouth, one section yelling them out to another till they reached their destination. Influence of the Germans. The German training and leadership have undoubtedly made a vast difference upon the Turkish Army. The Turks are up to all-tho German tricks, but our men soon dropped 'to most of them, and took such measures as were possible to counteract them. Such Turks as shammed wounded in the taken trenches and then fired at the backs of our men after tliey had passed or on our wounded at closo quarters got short; shrift. The Turkish guns were well concealed, and some of their snipers oven had their faces painted green, and held or tied a green branch in front of their heads as a screen. '• After a time some of our men adopted the branch idear of screening themselves when they were stalking tho snipers, and it was a pathetic sight sometimes, during the advance, to see a New Zealander or an Australian lying dead! with little bunches of box or holly stuck through his cap. "It had a sort of Christmassy effect, said one of the wounded. Often, added this man, you would see a bush moving slowly along quite near ' you. You knew' at once that you had to fire right into tho centre of that. At otlior times you would see a Turkish faco and pair of eyes through the greenery, and then it was a question of who got his shot or Ilia bayonet in quickest. During the first day or two's fighting the Turkish fi.ro positions were cleverly screened, and our men saw very little of them. Neither did they, see many of the enemy, except when tho latter made occasional rushes to change to another position.

Women snipers. One met with frequent stories of Women snipers in the Turkish lines, but it- was always difficult to get fii;st-hand information about them. A wouuded Australian whom I met yesterday gave me an instance that had come under his own notice. These particular snipers —and no doubt'many others also—-had silencers..on their Mauser rifles. Tiie advancing party therefore lieard only the ping of tlie bullet near them, and a sound like the crack of a, whip. On this particular occasion they located a sniper close at hand, and went to look for him. There was another "ping!" and oho of the men fell dead. Suddenly the party camo upon two snipers, who held- up their rifles in token of surrender. Their rifles were taken from t'hem, their liands tied behind their backs, and they were marched down to the beach. They were wearing the uniforms of dead Australian soldiers, and they had about 2000 rounds of ammunition near them, and enough food to last a fortnight. A doctor who examined them at headquarters found that they were loth women! On the

following day these Australians had to cross a gully on their right flank, and there they found live of their dead comrndos, stripped of al! their clothing, even to the hoots.

Tho man who told me this incident had been in tho thick of the lighting for the first fortnight, and on moro than one occasion ho saw the Gorman officers driving on the Turks with revolver and sword.

The "Third Tower.'* j The New Zealand mounted men have lelt their horses behind them nnd have gone to tho front as infantry. "By jovo, they will go into it heart and soul," said a wounded man to mo this afternoon. "Why?" I asked. "Because," he replied, "of the way. our chaps have been treated." There is, of course, always a kind of natural, enmity between tlio horseman and tho foot-slogger. The mounted men used to look down on the infantry, and jokingly refer to them as "bettlecrushers." And in Egypt the mounted men certainly 'had tho best end of tho stick, in so far as tho training went, iiio infantry had to go through a very severe ordeal indeed. Along tho Holio-polis-Suez road they did many a weary mile 'under tho hot Egyptian sun. Sometimes thoy did route-marches of twenty miles. Ono day they did . twenty-five miles by the map over soft desert sand with packs, rides, and equipment weighing between 601b. and 701b.! Some days thoy thought tliej- would never last it out. Thoy thought it absolute hell.But they never complained, and somehow they always 'managed to do it. Thoy would come back in the evening with eyebrows and eyelashes and such hair as was uncovered absolutely white. They were tho weirdest looking soldiers imaginable. But they stuck it out. They took it as pari; of tho gamo. . On this Suez road there are at certain intervals somo old watch-towei's built hundreds of years ago. One of the most usual marches was out to tho third watch-tower «uid back. The men. got to hate that tower with an unforgettable hate. They used to see it in their dreams. One night, as the New Zealanders were marching back, they wero met by somo Australians going out on a bivouac. Thoy asked where the New Zealanders had been. They replied: "To.the third tower." "Where are you going?" asked a New Zealanders. "To tho third tower," was tho reply. "But it won't bo so bad next week; we're going to push it six miles nearer camp to-night 1"

When the troops were leaving Zeitoun for Lemnos, at the' Dardanelles, everybody thought and said: "Well, thank God, there will .be no more third tower!" But.a wag in the Mounteds camo up and asked: "Have you seen what the Brigadier has got in tho guard's van?" "No," answered tho "beetle-crusher, "what is it?" "It's the old third tower; lie's taken it to pieces and* packed it up," was tho reply. Once aboard tho troopships .the men know they were really done with the old tower. But at Lemnos they landed for a route march, and tliey had not gone far before tliey came upon an exactly similar tower! They all seemed to see it at once; but it was left to a man intlie ranks to neatly sum up the situation. "Good Lord!" ho cried, "There's the old third tower: It's beaten us here!"

When the foot-sloggers went away to the Dardanelles and the mounteds had to remain behind,' it wag tho latter who came fti for tho chaff. They were promptly designated "The Sultan's Bodyguard!" "My word, you'll have a fine time in Cairo trotting the Sultan around," was the last thrust of a departing "beetle-crusher." But tho mounteds were just dying to get into it. and when the time came they x did not even mind leaving their horses behind them. Since then they have been in the thick of it, shoulder to sTioulder with the foot-sloggers, and many a good man among them will never see his horse again. They went bravely forward to avenge the deaths of comrades who had gone before, and brave-

ly they have given their all for King and Country. Far away from his boloved horse —now idle in tho desert camp at Zeitoun —many a rider has padded the hoof along the road into tlic Great Unknown.