The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10): The Story of the Year 1915Parrott, Edward
History
The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10): The Story of the Year 1915
Parrott, Edward
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile literature
A writer in _Blackwood's Magazine_ thus describes the landing of the
K.O.S.B.'s on Beach Y: "It is no time to dwell on what might have been,
but I cannot deny myself mention of the fact that we were actually on
the slopes of Achi Baba that first day, thanks to the dauntless
K.O.S.B.'s, who pushed through from Y Beach to Krithia almost unopposed,
fought their way through the ruins on to the farther slopes--and then,
owing to lack of supports, marched all the way back again under a
devastating fire. In the advance the battalion's losses were small;
coming back they were dreadfully punished, and at last dug themselves in
on the seaward side of Krithia, to meet a force of at least five times
their number." The K.O.S.B.'s, you will remember, were re-embarked and
taken round to Beach W.
"'Could you have done anything else?' I asked a Scottish Borderer, as we
sat in the scrub looking towards the hill, long afterwards.
"'Ah believe,' said he, 'properly reinforced in the rear, we could 'a
taken Achi Baba by twelve noon on the day o' the landin'.
"This is the opinion of a serving soldier, one of the eighty odd men
still alive who won to the gently rising slopes of this formidable
position, a bone in our throats for six deadly months--and there still."
* * * * *
Corporal J. Collins of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers gives us a
glimpse of the terrible scenes which took place on Beach W, where the
men of his regiment covered themselves with glory. "In my first boat,"
he says, "there were thirty-eight soldiers and four sailors, and when we
got near the shore the boat drifted about, so I decided to make for
land. I got into the water, and, being a strong swimmer, I was able to
pull one of my comrades on to my shoulder. Thus we struggled ashore.
Then we stumbled across barbed wire. The sand and the water choked my
rifle, and I was unable to use it when I landed, except the bayonet. We
struggled through the entanglements, and made for the cliffs, while
bullets were whistling and shrapnel shrieking all round us. While I was
advancing a shrapnel shell whistled past my breast, tearing my
ammunition pouch away, and reducing my clothes to tatters. The same
shell killed some of my comrades farther in the line. Keeping on, we
took the first Turkish trench."
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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