THE FIGHT FOR ACHI BABA

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1915, Page 6

THE FIGHT FOR ACHI BABA

AN IMPRESSION AT CAPE HELLES. GOOD WORK BY ENGLISH AND j FRENCH. A SURPRISE FOR THE TURKS. (Prom Malcolm Ross, War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces). July IS. Though Aclii Baba is distant only some nine or ten miles from our position at Anzac, the character of the operations and ol the country there are altogether different. Yesterday we left for the scene of the fighting, getting In a pinnace through a ehoppy sea into a trawler. Two hours' steam brings the trawler to Lancashire Landing, the scene of one of the most thrilling episodes in the war. There the pinnace performance had to be repeated, and we land on a little wharf that joins on to the beach, on which you are liable to get shelled at any time of the day, either from A9ia or the heights of Achi Baha, or from both together. This particular beach is the favorite HunfTng ground of "Annie from Asia," and "Blustering Bill" often keeps her company, while sometimes a high velocity shell flies over the position and bursts beyond before you can hear the sound of his coming. There have been times when between seventy and eighty shells have fallen within an hour, and there have been occasions upon which nearly two hundred shells have been landed by the enemy within the day. The Turks have sought by this means to stop the landing operations. In this they have signally failed. Occasionally, as at Anzac, they get a man or two. Just before we arrived a transport officer was Killed. From the General to the private all have to run the gauntlet, but the Turk mistakes the character of the British if, by this means, he hopes to stop either the supply of men, munitions or food. Day and night the operations go on, and day and night they will go on until the Peninsula is ours.

In the offing two or three hospital ships ride at anchor, and craft of various kinds, from battleship to destroyer, and from ocean liner to North Sea trawler, come and go. Close in-shore a vessel's mast and top hamper indicate a wreck of some weeks ago. A bit of a hull awash is all that can be seen of the Majestic. It is qiute close in-shore, an indication that if the vessel could have floated a little longer she might have been beached. The little wharf, the end of which is a floating barge, presents a busy scene. Ammunition, frozen hindquarters of beef, beef in tins, and all the wonderful variety of articles required for an army in the field, are being conveyed ashore by a regiment of chattering Greeks and a crowd of Army Service Corps men. On the cliff on the right the Red Cross flies on a staff above tTie British flag, where there is a hospital under canvas. Beyond that a dusty road slants up between the sandy cliffs. The sand is the salvation of the beach. Were it solid rock the bursting of the shells would claim a heavy toll here. Half-way up to the crest of the first rise are tents and mules and horses and great stacks of provisions, and a few tents in high barbed-wire entanglements, where the tired Turkish prisoners are well content to be at ease after the shook of a continuous shelling from the British field guns and the French seventy-fives, the continuous fire of the rifles, and the bursting bombs. The nhief interpreter, who has had a most adventurous career, is busy with a small staff examining the letters, records and orders found upon officers and men. Most interesting indeed are some of these. At the top of the rise, many crosses of wood mark the last resting place of many of our gallant soldiers, and as we pass it by a padre and an army doctor are giving decent burial to such of the men as have died from wounds in the recent battle. As the stretcher-bearers convey their greyblanketed burdens from the Ambulance Corps to the deep-dug trench you recognise that you are very close to the grim realities of war; but by this time you do not give the matter a second thought, and your attention is switched round to the work of the army which goes on unceasingly all around you. A strong wind is blowing, and the impression is that of a dust-storm in a miniatuie Sahara, out of which mule-carts, an occasional horseman, and little knots of soldiers emerge for a moment and disappear. The dust is the very devil. It gets on your clothes and boots, and into your hair and ears and eyes. Following ttye dusty road, you come upon old trenches and dug-outs, and more men. The whole place, which but a few weeks ago was a, beautiful garden of wild flowers, interspersed with small fir and olive and shade trees, and an occasional farm-house, is now an arid desert littered with the aftermath of war. Teiegrapn and telephone lines criss-cross along your pathway. AVhen we conic upon the headquarters of the Naval Division we meet a New Zealand colonel, who has distinguished himself both at Antwerp and here, in charge. They are due to make an attack either that evening or next day tq straighten-ip a bit of'the line in the cc.'tr?, so that may como up with the advance of the French on the right, and the British on the left made during the last two days. There has been some stubborn fightinp going on during this time, and tli-; Scottish Light Infantry have had their baptism of fire, and have more th.vi fulfilled expectations. The fight has been a typical one—a fierce botulurdm! Nt by the French and the British Ihei. a sally forth of the infantry, and a few hundred yards gained and ;na : ritx ; ni.-.l hi spite of Turkish shrapnel, ri'le fire ami bombs. In one place the S.L.I, got a trench too far ahead, and had to come back with the usual result—a loss of several j;.en. Yet, altogether, the Staff were well pleased with the advance made.

(Proceeding further towards the firim line, we gained a group of trees, under which some horses were tethered, o.kl there, out of the dust, we got a splendid \ iew of the 'battle-field, with the gentle slopes of Achi Bala rising to n low rounded top, continued on the by the line of a slightly lower ridge, which, once you were on top 0 f it, wouij probably develop into a narrow plateau On the left all was (juiet, but on the right the rattle of rifle-fire came down the wind, and Turkish shrapnel was bursting over the 'French trenches. Our fieldguns were replying from hidden positions. We were well within the zone of fire, but judged that the Turks, oven if they saw us, would not waste their shells upon so insignificant a target. Bits of shell scattered about, however, tint there were times when their

fire came in. this direction, and an Invitation from a "Tommy" to come to a better observation point within an adjacent dug-out was accepted. On. the left we saw clearly' Krithia, somewhat damaged by bombardment. About halfway between that and our position was the spot where the son of the New Zealand Minister for Defence fell gallantly fighting for his country. We returned the way we came. Warworn soldiers and some slightly wounded were returning along the dusty road to the base.. We walked awhile with • youngster of the Highland Light InfSntry and a chum severely stricken, though unscratched, by a bursting shells. The youngster was full of the charge they had made, and proud of the deeds of his regiment, which he detailed to us in.a strong Glasgow accent. His friend's shirt had been torn to tatters by the brusting shell, and a bit of the shell had gone through his trousers. He fell forward on his knees exhausted. iWe picked him up, and gave him a drink from oiir water-bottle. "Oh, I'm all right," he said, "I'll get there." Then, arm-in-arm with his younger and cheerier comrade, proud of the part they had taken in the blooding of the H.L.1., they resumed their trudge along the dusty road towards the clearing station. In a few weeks the shell-shocked, nerve-shaken soldier would be all right again, and back in the firing-line. As we steamed out in the little pinnace from Lancashire landing, a strangelooking craft came down and took up a position just off the cliffs to the north odf Lancashire landing. There must have been many a Turkish telescope, from Achi Baba along the coast to Gaba Tepe, turned on her, with her great beam, her tripod ninst, her Early Victorian skirt of steel just awash, and the two long, American-looking guns pointing from a barbette over an unobstructed forward gun platform. Such of our party as had seen her for the first time were nearly as much surprised as the wondering Turk. Presently one of the long 'black fingers sticking out from the barbette was elevated a few degrees, there was a great blast of (lame, a cloud of brownish smoke, and a tremendous report, as a shell of large calibre went tearing through the air. to a Turkish gun position on the .Asia coast. After seconds that seemed minutes we saw it bursting, miles away. Certainly, if it had got on to that Turkish battery the result must have been disastrous. Pluckily, in reply, a Turkish gun opened on the strange craft, and pooped her witn one shot. A kitten on board went up and examined the shell carefully, but for the .present it received no other attention. Subsequently it was decorated as a memento of the baptism of lire of this ship in the Gallipoii seas. After firing about ten rounds tlir- monitor headed for her harbor, ami steamed slowly and somewhat contemptuously out of range of the Turkish guns. ========== 1