FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 245, 6 July 1915, Page 3

FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES.

MORE TALES FROM THE TRENCHES. A CORPORAL’S STORY. DEEDS OF HEROISM AND SELFSACRIFICE. (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces.) CAIRO, May 20th, 1915. L.-Cpl. Noel Ross, who is in hospital here suffering from shock and an injured spine and leg, had an extraordinary experience. A shell exploded near him when he was range-finding, on the Sunday, but ho went on fighting and later, on Wednesday, collapsed on the battlefield. After remaining unconscious for sixteen hours, he came to on a hospital ship, and it was an extraordinary coincidence that on awakening he found that he had been ticketed by an old schoolfellow' —Dr Aubrey Short. He had also lost his hearing, apparently as the result cf an exploding shell, but this he has new regained. H e seems to have had a miraculous escape, for there was not even a scratch on him. His memory up to a certain point is perfectly clear regarding incidents and operations in those first few terrible days, and in various interviews he gave me the subjoined account of his own observations and experiences. There ‘were, however, periods on the Tuesday, and also late on Wednesday, about which he could not remember w r hat had happened. His mind, so far as these are concerned, is an absolute blank. DAWN AND THE BATTLEFIELD.

. “We were,” he said, “awakened at an early hour on the morning' of Sunday, the 25th. April. A man came tumbling down th e gangway into the hold of the troopship in which we were sleeping on the iron floor, and said that he could hear the guns. There was an immediate rush for the deck, and sure enough we could hear the bombardment almost like a continuous roll of thunder. What made it the more uncanny was the fact that, though we Vy’gvg only some five miles off shore, a low flat mist was veiling both the ships and the land from our side. As the sun rose, however, and we drew nearer to the Gallipoli Peninsula, the feautres cf the country became startlingly clear, and v.'e saw great warships steaming up and down the coast, while others were stationary, shelling thc Turkish positions. We went close inshore a mile or two from Gaba Tepe, and steamed slowly along the coast. Presently, even without glasses, one could se e figures runningabout on the beach and in the fields back of the beach. The Australians had succeeded in landing their covering party, and, apparently, were making some headway. Through the glasses the firingline became more and more distinct at one now well-known corner, marked on the map as the ‘Fishermen s Hut,’ the attack developed and as the khaki line rushed across an open field in extended order I could see now and again a man throw up his hands and fall heavily. The place was occupied in due course, and, as we found afterwards in our advance, the Turks had been driven from the adjacent contours at the point of the bayonet, though most of them did not wait for th e actual ‘inocculation.’ T|heir retirement along the whole front, whether intentional or not, was'a tactical one, for by falling back they drew our men on into the scrub-covered country on the hills above.

“To realise the formation of the country, you must imagine a series of hills starting abruptly from the beach, and th e first on e perhaps 200 ft high. These hills recede in parallels, each one higher than the other, until finally they attain a height of 700 ft above sea-level. Thus it will be seen that the fight for us was always an uphill one. As w e took each ridge, th e Turks from an eminence higher still poured down a heavy fire upon us. Thus our Army Corps was visible to the Turks during almost our entire advance, whereas they, retreating, were generally invisible to us. THE LANDING OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS. “To come back to our own landing, all this tim e the thunder of the gams continued, and the rattle of rifle fire was incessant, like thousands of ket- j tie-drums beating ceaselessly. Every now and then the enormous spit of the Maxims would add Its quota to the volume of the great battle chorus. Presently cam e the orders to disembark, Each man then drank his fill of water, taking as much as he could possibly hold, the idea of course being that a man under such conditions lasts longer without drinking, and so could save his water bottle for a time when iit might bo sorely needed. Even in j such a tense situation, the men were ] ready for a joke, and one member of j cur company said that if it had been t beer instead of water with which they ] were making the experiment, he could i have carried away twice as much. I Water, he said, somewhat damped his i ardour in this strange experiment.

‘‘ln a little while a destroyer. grim .and alert, glided alongside guv ship, and-, a sailer on board ashed if wo ‘were ready for it.’ ‘lt’s pretty wann ViP there,’ he added, ‘but they \e got

’em on the run.’ The destroyer was

tow ing large, fiat-bottomed punts. Into these we crowded, sitting as close together as it was possible to pack men. We had full equipment, 200 rounds of ammunition, three days’ rations, a full water-bottle, and even firewood. Our burdens weighed between SOlb rjnd 901 b. • Slowdy the destroyer steamed inshore, tewing the barges full of men, and when she got to the limit of her draught sh e cast us off. It w r as a weird scene, and most of us had queer sensations in th e pits of our stomachs as th e bullets began to whizz about us, and the guns continued to thunder from the sea and the hidden Turkish batteries on shore. The bullets came with a sort of a whistle. You know the noise a haw'k makes. It wms like * that They landed with a ‘phut’ in the water between and alongside the barges. 0n 8 man in our barge was hit in | the jaw by a spent bullet. A picket- ■ boat, in charge cf an immaculate middy, now' came up and rushed us farther inshore. The barges, great heavy affairs, would not, of course, go right up to the beach, and so most of us dropped over the side in water up to our armpits and half swam, half waded, ashore. With our burdens of between SOlb and 901 b this was no joke. Formed up on the beach we were given no rest. A staff officer informed- Colonel Stewart that reinforcements were wanted on the right at th e double. IN THE FIRING LINE. “We discarded our packs, and by a tortuous path scrambled up to the fir-ing-line. Then the difficulties of the operations became manifest. At this point the hills were covered with dv-W'f | richly holly and giant box shrubs, making progress difficult, and ad equat e communion Ton almost im--.-p;ible. Gradually vje get nearer th c . enemy’s rifle fire, and his shrapnel began to burst over us. So difficult was the matter of communication that when w'e actually reached our sector of the line we had only about ten men left out of a company of 240, th e great majority of th e others having missed the true line of ascent, and reached another part of the front. It was the same with the Australians. In a little w'hil c I was separated from my commanding officer, and found myself in -i. Turkish trench with some Australians. W e got some excellent practice on a few Turks coming down the slope on one of the opposite hills. Away on our flank, on e of our machine guns was betraying itself by the incessant jet of steam that was rising from its over-heated water jacket. Shrapnel was beginning to burst about ns ‘thickly, and soon of the eleven men in the trench only four of us were left, so wo decided that it was getting a little too hot for comfort. Two of the others were only wounded and managed to make their way to the rear, W e four then skipped further along across a bar e clay faoe.' Half-way ■across it I missed my footing, and slid for perhaps a hundred feet on to a path below. A sergeant on the opposite side called to me, ‘Don’t come down there; it's mined!’ Rather annoyed, I replied, ‘Well, catch me as I go up again.’ However, I slid over the place in safety, and, somewhat shaken, but still sound in wind and limb, resumed my place in the firing-line. COMRADES IN ARMS. “All that day t,hls weird fighting continued, and the broken sectors, unable to communicate with each other, fought staunchly—Australians and New Zealanders shoulder to shoulder — against great odds, and in many cases were overwhelmed. But we held our ground in spit eof everything. Every battalion (had reached the firing-line in disorder. That was inevitable, owing to the nature of the country and of the fighting. Many of th e trenches were filled with miscellaneous squads made up of Australians and New Zealanders. Hitherto not the best of friends, the men from the two colonies , now fought together like demons, helped each other’s wounded, shared each other’s water-bottles, and died toge--ther, till, at the end of the day, those who had com e through safely in strong terms expressed their mutual admiration and vowed eternal friendship. A SLEEPLESS NIGHT. “Night came at last, and as the sun dipped beyond the Gulf of Saros the rifle fire slackened perceptibly and fm--1 ally came along in fitful bursts, these ) bursts, from whichever side they came, J being due mostly to ‘nerves.’ Then as !was their wont on this and the succeeding nights the Turks started a violent shrapnel fire. Their shells, howf ever, were bursting high and their efjfect for this reason was considerably ! minimised. At th e same time the en- | omy observation was well conducted and their better fire was well placed by some observers, who in the daytime must hav e been able to see the whole of our base on the beach and all our trenches.

“All that night we got no sleep;’ about S o'lock a fine but chilling rain began to fall. Added to this most of us were still moist with a clammy dampness as the result of our drenching in the salt water in th e early morning. We lay down as we were without blankets. Throughout the night rifle fire continued fitfully, bullets falling all around. By this time, however, we were quite used to this. At/ftret you are inclined to cluck when you hear a bullet whistling overload, but there Is no

use ducking, because before you could Jo so the bullet would be either past you or through you. With a shell it is different. You hear Sts screech in time, and duck for any cover there may be in the immediate vicinity. The whistle c!f the sh'rajnel bullets j/s 'perhaps mcr c uncanny, than the noise made by, an approaching shell. The Queen Elizabeth was firing shrapnel with bullets about the siz e of small eggs. Seme few bullets fell over us, and w 8 picked up other I ,s in the abandoned Turkish trenches as we advanced. A 15-inch shell from ‘The Lizzy’ contains 20,000 bullets, and as an 18 pounder field gun can cover an area of 250 yards by 50 you can imagine how many acres of ground the shrapnel from the new battleship can dust up with one shot. ON THE LEFT FLANK “We of the Canterbury Battnblou had the left flank to look after, and though it proved comparative sinecure on this night we had to be none the loss watchful. This was the position we took up at nightfall after regaining the scattered units of our battalion. As was customary we stood to arms a little while before daybreak. Almost immediately thc snn rose the rifle fire commenced. A MOVING INCIDENT. “I forgot to toll you that on the Sunday when I was using a range-finder I was the witness of a strange and extraordinary incident. The range-finder is in itself a powerful telescope. On our immediate front, that is on the left of our whole posiion, here were two ship’s boats on the beach. In one a dead man sat in a dejected attitude with an arm thrown over the gunwale. In the other boat, half a mile from us, were a great many bodies —Australians. Altogether there were thirty dead men there—or at least so wo thought a the time. As I looked through thc glass I could see the body of an apparently dead sailor lying in a most life-life attitude, his white face turned as if he were gazing towards our position, his chin resting on his hand. I thought little more about the sad scene until the Monday afternoon, when, about 3 o’clck, I had another look through the glass. Then I saw that the sailor had changed his sition and was lying) —his white cap still on his head —with his white face turned to the sky. Ten minutes later I was thrilled to see a figure detach itself from the ghastly heap and hobble along thc beach only to collapse a few yards away. The moment he had moved a Turkish sniper had opened fire or him, and I could see the splash of several bullets in the water after they had gone past him. With four men I wen' along the beach to try and get him out but we had not gone more than a hur dred yards from our trench when thsand and stones near us began to risr in dust in response to a Turkish fusillade. Other bullets whizzed past uinto the sea. Wo then decided that 5‘ was best to go about our job more warily, so running from cover to cover w< got within hailing distance fo thc W" I had soon. Ho was shot, through bo’’ knees and was cheery but almost dom There were four others, ho said, on' there, in thc heap, still alive. Thc night before there had been eight, but four of these had not lasted till dawn. All this time we had been drawing the fire of the Turks, and we dared not approach the wounded man, for fear of attracting thc further attention of. the Turks to him. By degrees he manag ed to crawl to cover and we got him back. ’ ’

“Was this incident reported,” I could not help asking. “Oh, no,” replied the corporal, shifting his semi-paralysed leg into an easier position by pushing it with Ills sound one, “that was only an ordinary affair. Such incidents were happening every few minutes. There were scarcely enough cannon within our lines during those first few days when the Australian and New Zealand' Army Crps stormed and held thc heights of Gaba Tope. ’ ’

Every few minutes deeds were performed that were worthy of the highest decoration known to military authorities. Looking back on those first days one has nightmare visions like out of which stand clear some of the most consummately cool performances.

Toiling up a slope in the early hours J of the morning we came across a | wounded Australian officer. He was J shot through the jaw and had halted to ; have a rest half-way from the firingline to the dressing station. He was a ghastly object as ho sat there with a caricature of a grin on his poor shattered face, but he had all his wits about him. and he told ns in detail where we were most wanted, what to do when we got there, and then he mercifully fainted just as a stretcher party came up to receive him. Everywhere it was the same, and one got positively blase about such incidents. Surely there could not be a better example of pare coolness than the following incident, which I myself witnessed. A New Zealander was carrying a large biscuit-tin full of water to the firiug-lne, and he had to pass over a very open space where the bullets wore positively raising the .dust. One bullet neatly punctured a hole in his shoulder. Now, an ordinary man would at least have taken cover. Instead, he put both hands up and stopped the holes where the water was going to waste. , He con-

tinued his advance and reached us w\(Jj almost all the precious fluid.

Every evening the Turks energetically shelled the beach where wc had our ambulance dressing stations. Conse-

quently, the wounded were subjected to a tierce shrapnel fire as the stretcher parties went along the foreshore. This was too much of a good thing, and it was remedied by a strenuous staff officer (Colonel Chart or), who got together a fatigue party and, himself armed with a shovel, built a well-constructed path under cover of the sheltering Sandhills near the beach. y ■

On Wednesday all through the big attack the word kept coming back for more ammunition, more water, . ami more reinforcements. As the fresh men made their way up the steep slopes they met an interminable string of wounded coming down to the beach. And had the sight been vouchsafed us a few months before we would doubtless have had the stuffing knocked cut of us for a moment or two at least. As it was, however, these cheerful cripples put new heart into the men, and : they went into action all the more determined o make good. One man I ?■' shot through the groin pulling himself along in a sitting position, sliding, scuffing down a slope. “ That’s pretty rough work,” I said, smiling, but hi* answer was unexpected. “It‘s damn bad for my pants,’’ ho said cheerfully. At one stage a few hand grenade* began to arrive in our trenches. They were of two varieties, and there was one kind that smelt vilely and seldom went off. The other -wont off * so quickly that one didn’t have time Ur know whether it smelt or not. One of this latter species landed in a trench alongside a corporal of tho Wellington Battalion (A. H. Piper). It had still an inch of fuse to burn, so he held it quietly until it was almost gone—and then threw it back.. Grenade-throwing: ■ that sector stopped from the moment. “That’s what’s meant by aur-T-rise effect,’’ said the corporal, as be .resumed his rifle. Men do queer things when under es>“'toment. Once I saw T an Australian

dash out after a Turk with, the bayonet. He got him, too, but he tickled Mra with it first by way of preparation T Over on the right on the Sunday a panting blueacket • (now in khaki) flung himself down beside me, whispering. “Give ns a smack at ’em, Tommy, afore I goes back to me boat.” And he emptlel two of my clips at the green bashes opposite before he went back to explain why he had kept the cutter waiting for him.