PALESTINE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1918, Page 5

PALESTINE.

DETAILS OF OPERATIONS. OVERWHELMING TURKISH CASUALTIES.

London. April 14. Mr. Massey, writing from Palestine headquarters at Arial o n March 30, says that after the cavalry raid on the Hetljaz railway and the destruction of sections of the line north and soutli of Amman, our forces returned west of the Jordan, bringing several thousand Armenian uud Copt refugees from the villages w passed through, to save them from further bitter oppression by the Turks. The only troops we had east of the Jordan wereitha Australian Light Horse, left to defend the bridgehead at Ghorannivh. Considerable bodies of Turks who were known to have moved south through from Es-salt assembled about Shunet Ximrin and the road north of Hill Elband. TJie enemy planned a scheme to drive us over the Jordan and destroy tha bridge, but the manoeuvre wholly failed. The Turks suffered overwhelming casualties, the percentage of killed to the total force engaged being exceedingly high. The battle began at four o'clock on the Thursday morning by the enemy shelling Musallabeh in 'the foothills overlooking the Besan Road, about nine miles north of Jericho. The place was held bv the Imperial Camel Corps, who were also holding the line of the Wadi Ausi and strong points north thereof. The gunfire on the Camel Corps was heavy for two hours, an average of forty shells a minute being fired at them before the attack developed. This was quickly checked by our artillery and machine-guns, with considerable losses to tlu' enemy, who was -2000 strong., Meanwhile another Turkish force moved over the broken ground from the hills east of the Jordan along two routes towards Ghoranniych. The Australian Light Horse dug in on low mounds and mud cliffs, which made a peculiar formation. The east bank of the Jordan lends itself well to defence, "they were behind wire entanglements and had ma-chine-gun posts and strong artillery support west of the river. The Turks were in greatly superior numbers, but got no nearer than three hundred yards of the wire -when tl'.ey were stopped by the withering lire and held up the whole dav. The enemy could neither advance nor retire. A brigade of the light horse crossed' farther south and tried to envelope the attackers, who, however, threw out machine-gun detachments to protect their flanks, the nature of the country assisting them greatly.

Late in the day the enemy artillery opposite Ghorarniireh was silenced by our heavies As soon as it wa? dark the Turks began to retire, leaving lar.se burying parties working till dawn. In front of our wire many graves were visible and probably more in the nullahs. Yet at daylight yesterday 307 Turkish and German dead were counted in our front. The Lijht Horse defending the brigade had taken more prisoners than the* had casualties. As the enemy also suffered heavily at Musalwa and Allaben, their attempt to destroy the Jordan crossing spelled disaster for them.