The Landing at Anzac

Observation Post, Volume 1, Issue 26, 13 November 1942, Page 4

The Landing at Anzac

(Continued from last week.) STALEMATE. The summer dragged on slowly enough. The strength of the force was slowly dwindling through the wastage from sickness and daily casualties in i killed and wounded, and the prospect of 'making some decisive move without the addition of strong reinforcements became more and more remote. At every point the Army Corps was faced with wire entanglements and deep entrenchments which the enemy, strongly reinforced and enjoying every possible advantage that the position could offer, I was daily making more formidable. For the garrison at Anzac there was never any rest. The inactivity of the force was only comparative. Because it was not called upon to make any prodigious effort there was none the less no lessening of the incessant and arduous fatigues, no respite from the constant dangers and alarms, the sniping, night patrols, and the. fierce bombing encounters at those places where the opposing lines ran closely together. Before the com-' menccment of the lengthy preparations for the August offensive gave them a heartening indication of big events at hand, (the soldiers were inclined sometimes to wonder how much longer the depressing routine of “holding on’’ was to continue. The monotonous waiting during the hot summer weeks was calculated to do more to lower the morale of the soldier than all the exhausting struggles that had proceeded it. In men of another temper it would have produced a fatal lethargy, and a decay in

their lighting spirit, out in tne Australians and the New Zealanders it bred only a restlessness and a growing -desire for some decisive action to end the seeming ‘impasse.’ . SCENES OF ACTION. In this frame of mind .everyone turned with anxious interest to the theatre of • operations at the southern end of the Peninsular, where the British and French forces were laying siege to the great natural fortress of Achi Baba. Those battles and the possibilities they sno-o-ftsted were a. constant, tonic of dis-

cussion in June; and there were always at least one or two rumours in circulation that Achi Baba had fallen or was about to fall. Every time the noise of guns at Relles rolled up to Anzac in swelling Volume, and the shoulders of the big hill were cloaked in the sullen gloom of war, it was freely prophesied that its fall was imminent. So strongly does hope spring up in the heart of the soldier! But the story of those heroic but fruitless struggles is now well known. Achi Baba did not fall, and at last, hope shattered and prediction falsified, those who had long and valiantly persisted in the belief of its ultimate capture, came to regard Achi Baba as some great indestructible barrier which barred the path to victory-. And so in a measure it was.

The fighting at Helles, however, had a more immediate material effect on the affairs of the Army Corps, inasmuch as any big attack by the Allied forces in the south always found an echo at Anzac in the shape of a local operation undertaken in the hope of diverting some of the Turkish reserves from the real attack. In rear of his positions on the Peninsular the enemy possessed ample sheltered country in which to dirpose his reserves, and with lateral communications was able to move men to either Anzac or Helles at short notice. A diversion at Anzac was liable to be of.a costly nature; but at any rate it never failed to attain the dual object of retaining the Turkish forces opposite the colonials and attracting some portion of his reserves. ATTACK. On the occasion of the big attack at Helles on June 4th, the efforts made at Anzac to distract the attention of the enemy took the form of three distinct enterprises —a demonstration in the Direction of Gaba Tepe, and raids on a section of trench opposite Quinn’s, and on German Officers’ Trench opposite Courtney’s Post. 'New Zealand infantrymen . carried out the raid from Quinn’s Post, the assaulting parry numbering sixty men. They were to leave their own trenches at 11 pan., under cover of artillery fire, make a dash across No Man’s Land, and capture the selected portion of trench, which was then to be put in a state of defence, and linked up with their own line. The first phase was accomplished swiftly enough, the trench being successfully seized, and some Turks bayou'eted, in addition to 28 who were taken prisoners. The raiders were supported Iby the 2nd Battery, N r Z.F.A., the 4th 1 Australian Battery, and the 21st Indian Mountain Battery, firing on the front and left front of their objective, while .a section of the 4th Howitzer Battery 'accurately shelled the enemy’s main ! communication trench leading to the I captured trenches. The Ist Battery engaged the northern face of John ston Folly.

(To be continued.)