World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula; World War, 1914-1918 -- New Zealand
The place seemed deserted. There was a traversed trench just below the
crest. Most of the troops had jumped it, when--crack! crack! crack!
broke on the morning silence. Down dropped the Westlanders; then rushed
back to the trench, and there, in the sunlight, was the picture--the
trench full of squirming Turks, and standing over them with threatening
bayonets the gallant boys from Greymouth. Johnny Turk had been caught
napping, and the initiative of the New Zealand private soldier had
sealed his fate. It was then realized that the few Turkish phrases
laboriously learned did not convey much to the terrified prisoners.
They quickly decided that the proper thing to do was to throw all their
arms out of the trench--and out they came, rifles, knives and even
safety razors. The poor Turkish wounded lay groaning in the bottom
of the trench, while the unwounded, on their knees, murmured "Allah!
Allah!" and passed their hands mechanically from their foreheads to
their breasts and back again. A few men were left to get the wounded
and prisoners down to the boat; the remainder scoured the Suvla flats
in full view of the Turks on the Anafarta hills.
Three small houses proved to be empty, but in them were found the kits
of the guard; in one, the cells of a telephone instrument, with which
the garrison communicated with their headquarters at Anafarta. The
wire was cut, and a slab of guncotton placed in each of the houses to
demolish them.
[Illustration:
[_Photo by Lieut. Moritzson, M.C., M.M., N.Z.E._
THE EVENING HATE.
Shells falling among bathers off Hell Spit.]
The gun position was located, but there was no gun mounted. The dead
Turks were covered over in their own trench, the charges in the
houses were fired, and the party, with captured papers and prisoners,
re-embarked without mishap and returned at noon to Anzac.
Thus was the first landing at Suvla carried out successfully by New
Zealanders without a single casualty.
The Australian attempt on Gaba Tepe was most unfortunate. The Turks at
this place were not caught napping. As at Helles, barbed wire ran down
into the water and machine guns enfiladed the landing place. After
sustaining many casualties, the party withdrew, and the Turkish post on
Gaba Tepe remained a thorn in the side of Anzac until the evacuation.
The Nerve-Centre of Anzac.
A walk along Anzac Cove was full of interest and incident. The little
landing beach--a shelving strip of shingle, only twenty-five yards
wide--was never safe, but in a measure it was protected from shrapnel
by the height of Plugge's Plateau and the two ridges running down
towards Hell Spit and Ari Burnu. The Cove became the nerve-centre of
Anzac: nestling under the low cliffs on the beach were the Headquarters
of the Army Corps, the hospital of the Field Ambulance, the Ordnance
and Supply Depots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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