A DIARY OF GALLIPOLI.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 March 1916, Page 6

A DIARY OF GALLIPOLI.

DEMENTED BY EXCITEMENT. I ARMOR ON A TURK. A 9ergeant-major who sliall be nameless kept, a diary of the Gallipoli adventure, which in spite :>f its terseness, gives occasional vivid pictures of the high lights and shadows of the tragedy. He relates that on the fateful Sunday, April 25, when the 100 transports and the 50 war consorts were still 00 miles from Gapa Tepe they could hoar the thunder of the Queen Elizabeth's guns. Passing the southern point of the peniiisuit five hours later the whole panorama opened to them. There were from 80 to 100 English, French and Russian warships bombarding the forts and camps, with the Vengeance right in shore, a target for every enemy gun. The first few boats to land contained Australian infantry, who' rushed tba trenches with their ammunition still strapped to their backs. One fellow rushed up a steep face, shot the crew of a machine gun, and turned it down the trench. He must have killed at roast 100 men.

• "The crew of one boat joined in the charge with anything they could lay their hands on. One seaman, without boots, and without weapons, sprang at a maxim gun manned by three the gun down the slope, and then fell, riddled with bullets. "An Australian went off bis 'head with excitement, and after bayoneting a Turk got him over his shoulder with the bayonet through him, and raced up and down the beach, yelling 'A long way to Tippcrary.'"

The -writer further narrates that some of the 10th got two Turks on patrol one night. "One had a wrapping of some tough material all over him. to stop a bayonet. A bullet got him, but out .men tried their bayonets on it, and it took a strong thrust to penetrate it."

Many such allusions to victorious achievement occur in this fragment, but the references to the tragedy are more reticent; they are told in the curt fashion under which the Britisher hides his scars—a fashion that tells so well w'liat is said so ill.

One date is inscribed in capital letters —September 18. sCot the date of a victory, but the day of the writer's first square meal—"chicken, nearly fainted with the first mouthful."