World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula; World War, 1914-1918 -- New Zealand
The Anzac area now consisted roughly of two lines. Taking the sea as a
base, the inner line resembled a V, starting from Hell Spit, running up
Maclagan's Ridge, around to Plugge's Plateau, and then down the face
of the cliff to Ari Burnu, the northern limit of Anzac Cove. This was
the inner line of defence, and was never really manned, except by field
guns and a howitzer or two.
The outer line was shaped like a boomerang, with Quinn's Post as the
apex. The fire trench started from a point about 1000 yards south of
Hell Spit and ran up the crest of low ridges, thence to the hills
overlooking Monash Gully to Steel's Post, Courtney's and Quinn's;
next came Dead Man's Ridge and the post called Pope's Hill. Here
the impassable ravine intervened, on the other side of which was
the section later known as Russell's Top, whence the line took a
right-angled bend down Walker's Ridge to the sea. There probably never
existed a more tangled and confused line, consisting as it did of
posts perched perilously on the brink of steep cliffs, often not even
connected one to the other.
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF QUINN'S.
The three officers are Colonel Johnston, N.Z.I.B.; Lieut-Col. Malone,
Post Commander; and Major Ferguson, R.E., Engineer Staff Officer for
No. 3 Defence Section.]
Quinn's Post.
Of all these posts, Quinn's became the most famous. It was the salient
of the Anzac line and the nearest point to the Turk. Looking back,
it is a marvel that the place ever held at all. If the enemy could
have shelled it, Quinn's would not have lasted five minutes. It was
first held, a ragged trench line just below the crest, by men of the
4th Australian Infantry Brigade, which formed part of the N.Z. and
A. Division. Those famous battalions--the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th
Australian Infantry--established themselves on the night of April 25
at the head of the gully named after their well-known Brigadier. The
Turk seemed determined to regain possession of Quinn's--this would
have imperilled the whole Anzac line, for the holding of Quinn's alone
ensured the communications by way of Shrapnel Valley and Monash Gully.
Because holding Quinn's meant holding Anzac, no labour was too great
to be expended on it. Men in the bomb factory, having completed a
long day's work, turned to again when it was made known that "Quinn's
was short of bombs," and pathetic it was to see these hard-swearing
Australian and New Zealand sappers nodding their heads and dropping off
to sleep with a detonator in one hand and a piece of fuse in the other,
only to wake with a start and, in the small hours of the morning,
carry the product of their toil up to their beloved Quinn's--a journey
of over a mile in the dark with a box of high explosives!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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