World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula; World War, 1914-1918 -- New Zealand
A party of New Zealand Engineers was established in Quinn's and Pope's
from the second day, and their duty was to sap forward with a deep
trench through the crest, and then put T ends on the ends of the saps,
thus making farther towards the Turk a new firing line which gave a
better field of fire. This most dangerous work was much hindered by the
enemy dropping grenades in the head of the sap. Men often had bullet
holes drilled through their long-handled shovels, but despite the
casualties, the work went on.
To the right of Quinn's it was necessary to dig a sap through to join
up with Courtney's, and after much labour and loss this work was
accomplished. To the left of Quinn's was the hotly-contested Dead Man's
Ridge, which, after the morning of May 3, rested in the hands of the
Turk. This vantage point almost looked into the back of Quinn's, and
a work of great magnitude was the construction of a sandbag wall to
protect the tracks to Quinn's from the Turkish machine guns on Dead
Man's Ridge.
It was foreseen that if the enemy commenced mining in earnest, a
fair-sized charge might blow the post off the hillside into Monash
Gully. So counter-mining was decided on. There were no tunnelling
companies then in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, and the sapper
field companies were too reduced by casualties to do the work. But
all through the Colonial armies were miners and tunnellers--these men
from Broken Hill, Coolgardie, Waihi, Westport, and other places where
coal and gold are won, were formed into companies under experienced
officers, and in a large measure the strenuous labours of these
improvized units at Courtney's, Quinn's and Pope's saved Anzac to the
British.
Right through the twenty-four hours the miners sweated at the tunnel
face, interested in only one thing: how far the man just relieved
had driven in his last shift. There was no talk of limiting the
output or of striking in Anzac, for here there was a great community
of interest--each one was prepared to labour and, if needs be, to
sacrifice himself in the interests of the common weal.
[Illustration:
[_Lent by Sergt. P. Tite, N.Z.E._
COURTNEY'S POST.
One of the best photographs taken of an Anzac trench system. The front
line is just over the crest; the reserve trenches are near the lop left
hand corner; the white earth spilled down the cliffside is from the
mines running out to the front; the zig-zag track up the steep cliff is
clearly shown.]
Aeroplanes.
Our flying men had their headquarters in Mudros Harbour. Daily they
flew up and down the Peninsula, but they were sadly overworked. Mostly
they were seaplanes belonging to the Navy. This was a sad handicap to
our artillery ashore, for guns without aeroplanes spotting for them are
almost as ineffective as a blind pugilist.
[Illustration: ON THE RIGHT FLANK.
Notice the deep communication trenches through the crest to the firing
line, and the 25 graves in the little cemetery.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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