THE DARDANELLES

Taranaki Daily News, 23 October 1915, Page 6

THE DARDANELLES

THE FIGHT FOR CHUNAK BAIR. NEW ZEALANDERS STORM THE HEIGHTS. THE FIGHTING ON SUNDAY. (Ffrom Malcolm Ross, Official Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces.) No. 3 Outpost, August 8. By 5.45 a.m. on Saturday, August 7, the Otago, Wellington, and Auckland Regiments had joined up on Hhododendron Ridge, and were about to attack their objective, Chunuk Bair, the curving outline of which we could see clear out against the eastern sky, some distance back, and several hundred feet above. A slight diversion was caused by the appearance of two aeroplanes, one a Taube and one an English machine. For a time we were thrilled with the expectation of a duel in the air overhead, but the speedy German machine made off in a great hurry, with -a thin bluish line of vapour streaming from his exhaust. The English pilot followed him for a while, and then turned and went on with his observations. Offshore the balloon was up above its mother ship, and a vessel was shelling in the direction of Anafarta, searching, no doubt, for a four-gun battery that had come into action against the lanaing. Our wounded were being brought in to a dressing station not far from the beach. Turkish wounded were also being carried in and attended to, and by this time there were 200 prisoners within our lines. The Turkish prisoners were given, food and water. Three Hospital ships stood out in the offing. About !) a.m., there was a lull in the firing, and sometimes a full second would pass without a rifle shot being fired. The ships' guns were silent. Half an hour later, however the bombardment was resumed with an ear-straining noise. By this time the New Zealand Infantry Brigade had advanced well up the slope of the hill, but, as they had to run the gauntlet of fire from the Turkish trendies, and also from a mountain gun, they were held up for the time being. They were being enfiladed from the Battleship Hill on their right. Meantime, the Turks had appeared on the crest of the hill, and we could see them quite plainly against the skyline. One big man came bravely out into the open and waved his men on. Some of them came over the crest of the ridge and down the slope for about 100 yards towards our troops; but they were met with bursts of shrapnel from our howitzers, and we saw several drop. The officer bravely urged them on again and again, but finally they gave it up, and retreated over the ridge top. The Bhips were signalled, and they soon were searching jthe ridge with shrapnel and high ex- ! plosive. Wo saw some Turks drop, but once they had retreated over the skyline and on to the reverse slopes they were comparatively safe. In a saucershaped hollow on the shoulder of Chunuk Bair we could see our reserves clustered. They remained there all that day, the next night, and most of them also during the following night, and seemed fairly safe from the enemy's fire. A second bombardment by the navy hit all along the ridge, but the Turks had got into safety, so it was decided to discontinue the gunfire till nightfall, such of our own guns as could reach the position registering upon it in the meantime. For the present the New Zealanders had failed to reach their objective. That evening, a long line of Kitchener's Army, as it is called, headed by the "\l£ast Lanes.," poured out of the communication trench, filled their bottles at the water depot, and proceeded under cover of the night to take up their position in the firing line on the left. They seemed a likely-looking lot, well disciplined and well trained. They had had a few days in the trenches at Helles, but this was something different even from Helles, and very different from England. They were to be tested under very strange conditions, and in very unfamiliar surroundings. In the "Rest" j valley in which they had spent the night quietly waiting, they had had quite a j number of casualties. They were, howI ever, in very good spirits, and made inquiries if there was any "foitin'" to be | found about here. We assured them that there was just a little.

THE PJGHTING ON SUNDAY. NEW ZEALANDERS HOLD THEIR POSITIONS. Anotiier dawn—that of Sunday, August B—saw the ships again shelling and after the preliminary ■bombardment' we saw the New Zealanders advancing through the stunted scrub towards the crest of Chunui; Bair. They went at first cautiously, and then made a dash and gained the ridge. It was an inspiriting moment. Could the few men who bad reached the ridge hold it against the Turks, who had the advantage of trenches on the right and the left? Our men were shot at from several points of vantage, and we saw several drop. But always there were others to take the places of those who had been put out of action. A number of the Turks advanced boldly and bravely in the open. Three of them rushing up to a man on the extreme right of our line, bayoneted him, and he fell to the ground. They passed on. Two of.them were shot down. The third vanished over the crest of tne ridge. There was fighting at close quarters for a time, but our men, for the time being, had won the day, ana 60on two flags fluttered out at either end of our short line, a few yards short of the actual summit, to indicate the position and guide the guns in regard to future shelling. It was most interesting to watch the operations. Our men began to dig themselves in vigorously, and gradually against the skyline we could see that their bodies were getting lower and lower down. There was a great crackle of rifle fire and the machine-guns began to pour out their streams of bullets. A Turkish gun burst some shrapnel over the position we had gained, and a smaller gun endeavoured to reach our reserves. On the left our guns were shelling vigorously', and other shells fell on the deep enfilading Turkish trenches on the right. Opposition from the latter quarter was soon silenced, or at all events greatly minimised, but on the right the Turks dashed up boldly on to and sometimes over the crest of the ridge. As a rule, however, they did not come far down our slope, and those who did soon turned tail and ran back, for one of our Maxims was soon playing on them. We could see them clear-cut against a dark cloud, the northern end of which the rising sun was just tinging with gold. Quite close to the victorious New •Zealanders and a few yards .from the

actual summit of the ridge, we picked up a Turkish trench filled with men. As they rose to fire volleys we could see the sun gleaming on their bayonets. They fired hurriedly without aim, and ducked down again. At 6.30 a.m., the sun rose over the northern end of the ridge and made observation difficult. All this time the firing never ceased but our men had now made themselves some protection, and were not to be shifted without a struggle. Some exposed themselves fearlessly as they gained the ridge and every now and then one would fall. The bursts of great explosions from one of the cruiser's shells made vast clouds of smoke and shattered earth along the ridge, and in one of these we could clearly see a Turk hurled in the air. Most of the Turks had, however, retreated over the ridge, and so our guns lengthened their ■range. The shrapnel seemed to burst in good positions, and no doubt it accounted for quite a number of the enemy. In any case it had a demoralising effect, for a Turk, brave as he is, does not like shrapnel any more than he loves the colder steel of the bayonet. Down below in the scrub, considerably to the Qeft of the position our brave fellows had gained, we could see the Ghurkkas waiting for their opportunity, but night was to fall before they could obtain it. The navy was now making j magnificent shooting on the ridge. The red flames of the bursting shell amidst the black cloud of smoke and earth it raised was startlingly vivid. By this time our men had dug themselves la pretty well, and at twenty minutes past six the rifle fire slackened. The ship's guns also ceased firing for the time being. •By 7.30 a.m., our men had gained a few yards, and, we saw one of our flags'waving on the actual summit of the ridge, quite close to the Turkish trench. The fighting continued throughout the day, with occasional fierce bombardments from the navy, and bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire. Thi> Turks appeared to be reinforced, but they gained no ground Night fell with the New Zcalanders still holding the highest point of the whole bittlefield on the Gallippli Peninsula, but holding it precariously.

DELAY ON THE LEFT FLANK. NEW ZEALANDERS RELIEVED. ON GALLIPOLI PENINSULA. August 10. The conclusion of my last dispatch left the New Zealanders on the summit ridge of Chunuk Bair, upon which, however, they seemed to hold rather a precarious footing. Led by their gallant colonel, the Wellington Regiment had, in attaining this ridge under determined Turkish opposition from superior positions, brought off a feat of arms that will live for ever in the history of the Dominion. With them, sharing the honor of the attack, were some of the Gloucester Regiment of the new armies. The men gained the crest of the ridge with a cheer. The officers shook hands with each other.

THE LEFT FLANK. 'On the left the Australian Infantry reached the Abdil Raman Dere, below Koja Chemen Tepe, a ridge slightly to the north and eastward of the position stormed by the New Zealanders and a little higher than the Chunuk Bair spur. They, however, found this position very 6trongly held, and were met with a withering fire on their front and flanks from both the rifle and the deadly machinegun. In consequence of this they had to retire upon their original line. In the meantime, a position on the north of the range—known as Q—was attacked by a column of the new. armies in cooperation with the New Zealanders on the right and the Gurkhas in the centre. This attack was made after a heavy bombardment, which we watched from 4.30 a.m. till 5.20 a.m. When it ceased we could see the Gurkhas advancing up the steep scrub-clothed slopes. Led gallantly by their colonel, they gained the heights between Chumik Bair and Q. From their vantage ground they looked down upon the surrounding country. Eastward they beheld the Turkish motor transport moving along the dusty roads, and, beyond that, the beautiful, but still unconquered, Dardanelles. Their officers also shook hands on the crest of the ridge. Unfortunately, however, the British column had been delayed owing to the rugged nature of the country, to which they were quite unused, and the Turks, presently developing a fierce counter-attack with some unexpected shelling, forced the gallant little Gurkhas to retire.

On the right we could see the New Zealanders still on the crest and endeavouring to dig themselves in under shrapnel, maxim, and rifle fire. From dawn till eve they were strongly attacked, and as they had been fighting continuously for three days and three nights they were now relieved by two battalions of British infantry about midnight. Never could men be more desirous of rest and food and sleep than those plucky fellows, who had won the heights and held them so well. The wounded, who presently began to arrive, declared that they had passed through a veritable hell upon earth. THE EVENING SCENE. That evening, the scene in the vicinity of the clearing station was one of enthralling interest. From the steep knolls above, now dotted with dug-outs and sandbagged bivouacs, we could note the mule-trains coming and going along the sap and the new beach road. The wounded were coming in—some walking, others carried by the heroic stretcherbearers. Most were cheerful though tired, and as they limped along they had tales to tell of brave deeds ana liero.'c endurances. Occasionally, one heard one's name called, and met a friend limping it, and the most one could do was to give him a cigarette or a drink of water —the latter a scarcer commodity almost than the former in this arid land. Coming in under a guard were numbers of Turkish prisoners, with an occasional German amongst them. Our men had captured a whole machine-gun section, and at their head was a German gunner. He was just getting his gun into action when a Gurkha cut off his nose. Another moment and it would have been the Gurkha who would have been out of action. The Gurkha is at his best when bringing in a prisoner. There is an air of conscious pride about him that is decidedly amusing, and as lie looks at you and you at him you both smile as if there was a thorough understanding between you. Of all the fighting men with whom our colonials have come in contact they admire the Gurkha the most. His sturdy build, his light quick 6tep on the march, and, above all, his bravery and dash in the fight, combined with a cheerful disposition, have earned him a unique place in the estimation of our soldiers fighting on Gallipoli. In this fighting we hare captured between 500 and 600 prisoners. Occasionally a dozen Turkish prisoners would be marched in in charge of three or four

Indians. They are a strong-looking lot, and they seem to have boon better fed in this than in some other of their campaigns. No doubt the Germans are seeing to this very important detail. For the rest, they have a slouchy walk, with bent knees and rounded backs. In this respect, they are quite unmilitary. They look as if they were used to hard manual labor. They are clad in rather thick-woollen garments of varied colors of grey and khaki, and their headgear is as variegated as their uniforms. Frequently they are badly shod. Though there is no gainsaying their bravery, they seem quite' glad to be out of the firing line once they know that they are going to be well treated. One can scarcely blame them, poor devils —eatspaws of Germany—when one has seen the tornados of high explosive shell and shrapnel that so frequently burst about them, to say nothing of ride and ma-chine-gun fire. Our men bear them no ill-will—except, perhaps, in the case of the sniper, whose legitimate sport, for some reason or other, they will not tolerate.

On the little flat below us are crowds of soldiers going and coming; lines of mule-carts and all the other paraphernalia of modern warfare. Over the promonotory that ends in Nibrunisi Point, to the south of Suvla Bay, there is a forest of masts and smoking funnels, the result of the now landing. We can see shrapnel bursting on tlic chocolate hills away to the north, where the new army corps is steadily at work, but still meeting with considerable resistance. The balloon that has been spotting for the* guns has been hauled down. Opposite us are hospital ships, cruisers, destroyers and various small craft, either at anchor or moving up and down or across the Gulf of Saros. And behind it all is one of the most wonderful sunsets imaginable. That such scenes should be defiled by war is a sad commentary upon German culture and civilisation. But all night long the guns flash and the bullets whistle over our heads with an eerie sound telling us that the Keaper is at our elbow.

STRONG TURKISH COUNTERATTACK, THE ENEMY BEHJLSED. No. 3 Outpost, August 12. There was no sleep that night for our tired troops. Till dawn. the English held the topmost trench, and with the New Zealanders and some of the 13th Division in support below them. As, however, the Australians on the left had been held up in their attack, and a fresh column from the British 38th Brigade, also on the left, had been delayed in the difficult country, while the Gurkhas had had to retire from the ridge back some little distance, it became necessary to break off the engagement in order to reorganise the line. On Tuesday, in the half.light before the dawn, the Turks suddenly came pouring over the crest of Chunuk Bair, and swooped down upon our position in superior As dawn broke we could see them bravely rushing down across the fire-swept slopes of Chunuk Bair into a gully to the right of our suports on Rhododendron Ridge. Every now and then a man would stagger and fall headlong down the slope, and remain prone on a bare patch, or rise and limp away into the scrub or one of the topmost trenches for shelter. Meantime, the New Zealand guns had got to work with deadly accuracy. Shrapnel bursting on the upper slopes almost completely wiped out whole groups of the enemy scattered amongst the scrub. . The big guns and the secondary armament on the cruisers were also at work, and shattered the top-most Turkish trenches with the forceful lyd,dite. It was too much for all but tne bravest Turks, and presently numbers began to climb laboriously back up the slopes they had so valiantly charged down but a few minutes before. On these retreating Turks,our shrapnel still played, and after tiie dust of each successive burst had cleared away there would be only two or three men where a few seconds previously there had been a dozeu or a score. These continued their flight, some bending down in an endeavour to escape notice, others limping along, and still others strolling back with fatalistic unconcern. One wounded man came out of a hail of shrapnel, limped up the slopes and over the crest of the ridge into safety on the Dardanelles side, though many a shot must have fallen about him. One became absorbed in his progress, and though he was an enemy, felt almost pleased when finally his silhoue:te fl!sappeared over the skyline. But even there he was not safe, for many of our shells were dropping on the reverse side of tho slope, and no doubt with deadly and demoralising effect, for there must have been many Turks assembled there. The battle raged throughout the whole morning, but the Turkish onrush .had been stemmed by our gun-jire and by the rifles and mac.hine-guns as well. It was, however, the gunners' day out, and they certainly took full advantage of it. There was scarcely a Turk left alive in the gully, nor on the slopes though some had managed to crawl back into the trenches, and over the crest of Chunuk Bair.

Later in the day I watched enthralled for some hours an intense bombardment of the ridge and the upper slopes of Chimuk Bair. The Turks had done a good deal of trench work along the ridge. On these works the lyddite now played with wonderful effect, sending great clouds of dirt and smoke high into the air. The hursts took varied shapes, some columnar, others spreading out in mushroom-like shape, no doubt in accordance with the resistance met with. On the edge of these sometimes 'one would see a sand-hag or the body of a Turk hurtling high, in the air, the man's arms and logs spread-eagled against the sky. One Turk, his rille flying after him, was hurled upward and outward, and fell over the steep face of the topmost ridge into the narrow ravine, where lay most of the dead of the previous day's fighting. All this was quite a cheering sight—so callous does one become in war. Presently there was a great burst of lyddite from one of the ship's guns, and on" the eiige of the black cloud that rose right in the centre of a Turkish trench three bodies went whirling heavenward in different directions, and with arms and legs extended fell somersaulting into the surrounding scrub. To theso Allah had been merciful, for in an instant they had gone painlessly flying into their paradise. At this time the bombardment was so intense that the enemy's trenches must have become a veritable inferno. Tt was too much even for the fatalistic Turks, and presently they began to leave the trenches "and bolt back over the ridge through the deadly Durst ot shrapnel. But even as they went others came on—singly and in twos and three—towards the trenches our men' had vacated. Some fell on the way, others survived, and gained comparative safety for the time being. These fellows may have been driven on by their officers from behind the ridge, but in any case their brave progress thrauah such « tornado of fire could not

but rouse our admiration. But on the whole more were now struggling slowly back than there were struggling madly, forward, and many of the former were going back without their rifles—a sure testimony to the demoralising nature of our gun-fire. When day closed the Turks were sadly shaken on the battered treat of Chu« nuk Bair, but both sides had fought to a, standstill. There is a point in human endurance at which the moat intense battle along a narrow front must cease, and that point had now been reached. The gains were entirely on our side. We had driven the Turk out of his advanced positions, and pushed our own line forward to a favorable point, and by God's grace and our strong bayonet we still hope to plant our flag once more—and this time permanently—on the crest of Chunuk Bair.

THE MEN WHO CAME BACK. A TALE OF HEROISM AXO ENDURANCE. Gallipoli Peninsula, Sept. !- The other day three men of the Wilts, haggard and worn, and with their eyes bulging iu their sockets, came back literally out of the valley of death. For a fortnight following the attack on Chunuk Bair, they remained in the Valley of Sazli Beit, living on what food they could get from dead men's Haversacks, and water drawn from a Turkish well. The story they tell is one pf enthralling interest. To begin with they 'got food from a dead Gurkha's haversack, and afterwards some biscuit.? from the haversacks of their own dead comrades. Tney stated that a sergeant ot". the Xorth Lanes., wounded in both arms, and four men of the uth Wilts Rifles were still alive in the valley. They were pretty certain that there were no others alive in Oie valley. An officer, a corporal, and five of their comrades, they said, died from starvation and thirst. ,

Originally, there were 200 of them, but most of them got out on the night of August 10-H. During the stay of these men in the gully they saw Turks on several occasions. During the last three days the Turks were busy putting battled wire and sandbags at the top,of the gully. The Turks refused to take them prisoners or to give them water. •On ■. the night of llth-12th the Turks took \ away a lot of arms and ammunition. A major, a captain, and a lieutenant, the men stated, were dead in the gully. The Turks stripped one of their wounded of all but his body belt and left him in the sun. They shot a private of the 6tU North Lanes., who was very far gone, but it seems pretty clear that hi* case was hopeless, and that they did this simply to put him out ot his misery. The men reached a trench which at one time had apparently been in ,the hands of the New Zealanders. A private 01 the sth Wilts got wounded while trying to escape on the night of the 10th. Ha * was shot in both legs. His comrades did the best they could for him and bound up his wounds, but 'after nine days he succumbed. As soon as possible after the return of these men, one of them wa» mounted on a donkey and guided ft search party in tlie night time. This party found the trench as stated, with the articles inside it exactly as described by the roturned men, and also the body of the dead Gurkha. Thoy also found the body of the major, but did not flntl any men. • On the day following their return, when the men had somewhat recovered, they were able to give some further Information. One man was killed and one wounded in trying to escape towards the sea. For three days nothing more was attempted, but looking after the wounded. , Then one of the men suggested to the lieutenant that there was no usn waiting any longer; but the lieutenant refused to go 1 ; saying it would be murder to leave the wounded. This brave fellow seems to have sacrificed his own life through staying on to assist the wounded. At his instance, the tlirca men remained for three more days ii the valley. Once the men tried to get out of the valley by way of a precipitous slope leading to Rhododendron tSpur. but were fired upon by half a dozen Turks, on the opposite side of the valley, and on> e from their own trenches, our men evidently mistaking them for Turks. Turkish patrols were heard on the night of 25th-2(!tl). their voices being distinctly audible, but they did not see the British soldiers, who subsequently escaped at stated.