The Anzac Book

by Unknown

EDITOR’S NOTE

This book of Anzac was produced in the lines at Anzac on Gallipoli in the closing weeks of 1915. Practically every word in it was written and every line drawn beneath the shelter of a waterproof sheet or of a roof of sandbags—either in the trenches or, at most, well within the range of the oldest Turkish rifle, and under daily visitations from the smallest Turkish field-piece. Day and night, during the whole process of its composition, the crack of the Mauser bullets overhead never ceased. At least one good soldier that we know of, who was preparing a contribution for these pages, met his death while the work was still unfinished.

The Anzac Book was to have been a New Year Magazine to help this little British Australasian fraternity in Turkey to while away the long winter in the trenches. The idea originated with Major S. S. Butler, of the A.N.Z.A.C. Staff. On his initiative and that of Lieutenant H. E. Woods a small committee was formed to father the magazine. A notice was circulated on November 14th calling for contributions from the whole population of Anzac. Any profit was to go to patriotic funds for the benefit of the Army Corps.

Between November 15th and December 8th, when the time for the sending in of contributions closed, The Anzac Book was produced. As drawings and paintings began to come in, disclosing the whereabouts of some of the talent which existed in Anzac, a small staff of artists was collected in order to produce head- and tail-pieces and a few illustrations; and a dug-out overlooking Anzac Cove became the office of the only book ever likely to be produced in Gallipoli.

It was after the contributions had been finally sent in, and when the work of editing was in full swing, that there came upon most of us from the sky the news that Anzac was to be evacuated. Such finishing touches as remained to be added after December 19th were given to the work in Imbros. The date for the publication was necessarily delayed. And it was realised by everyone that this production, which was to have been a mere pastime, had now become a hundred times more precious as a souvenir. Certainly no book has ever been produced under these conditions before.

Except for this modification in the scheme of its production, The Anzac Book remains to-day exactly the same as when it was planned for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps still clinging to the familiar holly-clothed sides of Sari Bair.

The three weeks during which this book was being produced will be remembered by the men of Anzac as being the period during which we were visited by the two fiercest storms which descended upon the Peninsula. During the afternoon of November 17th the wind from the south-west gradually increased to more than half a gale, and brought with it, after dark, a most torrential thunderstorm. A day or two later this subsided, leaving a dishevelled Anzac. But the wind swung slowly round to the north, and by November 27th it was blowing a northerly blizzard; and the next day five out of every six Australians, for the first time in their lives, woke to find a white countryside and the snow falling. How deeply that snow impressed them can be seen in these pages—for dust, heat and flies were much more typical of Gallipoli.

The book was composed from first to last in the full prospect of Christmas at Anzac, and it remains a record, perhaps, all the more interesting on that account. The Printing Section of the Royal Engineers, especially Lieutenant Tuck and Corporal Ashwin, and Lieutenant G. L. Thomson, R.N.A.S., and certain Naval Officers helped us with some drawing-paper, ink and paints, and the Photographic Section with some excellent panoramas; but for the rest, the contributors had to work with such materials as Anzac contained: iodine brushes, red and blue pencils, and such approach to white paper as could be produced from each battalion’s stationery.

The response to the committee’s request for contributions was enormous, and in consequence the editors have been able to use only portions, even if they be a half or a quarter, of the longer articles and stories submitted to them—but they have done this without hesitation, rather than reject the articles altogether. The competitions for certain contributions resulted as follows: Cover—Private D. Barker, 5th Australian Field Ambulance; Drawing—Trooper W. O. Hewett, 9th Australian Light Horse; Drawing (Comic)—Private C. Leyshon-White, 6th Australian Field Ambulance; Prose Sketch—H. Dinning, 9th Co., Australian A.S.C.; Prose (Humorous)—Second-Lieutenant J. E. G. Stevenson, 2nd Field Co., Australian Engineers; Verses—Captain James Sprent, 3rd Australian Field Ambulance; Verses (Humorous)—T. H. Wilson, A Co., 16th Battalion A.I.F. The greater number of the contributors were private soldiers in the Army Corps. The sole “outside” contribution is Mr. Edgar Wallace’s poetic tribute to the Australian and New Zealand Force, which is included in these pages with the consent of the author.

The thanks of those particularly concerned in the production are especially due to General Birdwood, for his close and constant interest; to Brigadier-General C. B. B. White, who, though at the time burdened with most anxious duties, never failed to give some of his few spare moments to the solving of difficulties incidental to this publication; to the Commonwealth authorities and the Publicity Department in London; and particularly to Mr. H. C. Smart, for his untiring assistance, invaluable advice, and for the help of his outstanding ingenuity in organisation, and of the splendid business system and abundant facilities which he has created in the Australian Military Office in London; to the War Office and the Admiralty, and the Central News for permission to use valuable photographs; and to many others, both in the A. and N.Z. Army Corps and outside it, who have given their best help to make this book a success. For the Staff—C. E. W. Bean, editor; Privates F. Crozier, T. Colles, D. Barker, W. O. Hewett, C. Leyshon-White, artists; A. W. Bazley, clerk—the work has been a labour of love for which only they realise how little thanks they deserve.

The Anzac Book Staff.

Ægean Sea,
December 29, 1915.

The Ideal
And the Real.

C. LEYSHON-WHITE
1915

COMPLAINTS of the SEASON

The Anzac Book

THE LANDING
By a Man of the Tenth

Come on, lads, have a good, hot supper—there’s business doing.” So spoke No. 10 Platoon Sergeant of the 10th Australian Battalion to his men, lying about in all sorts of odd corners aboard the battleship Prince of Wales, in the first hour of the morning of April 25th, 1915. The ship, or her company, had provided a hot stew of bully beef, and the lads set to and took what proved, alas to many, their last real meal together. They laugh and joke as though picnicking. Then a voice: “Fall in!” comes ringing down the ladderway from the deck above. The boys swing on their heavy equipment, grasp their rifles, silently make their way on deck, and stand in grim black masses. All lights are out, and only harsh, low commands break the silence. “This way No. 9—No. 10—C Company.” Almost blindly we grope our way to the ladder leading to the huge barge below, which is already half full of silent, grim men, who seem to realise that at last, after eight months of hard, solid training in Australia, Egypt and Lemnos Island, they are now to be called upon to carry out the object of it all.

“Full up, sir,” whispers the midshipman in the barge.

“Cast off and drift astern,” says the ship’s officer in charge of the embarkation. Slowly we drift astern, until the boat stops with a jerk, and twang goes the hawser that couples the boats and barges together. Silently the boats are filled with men, and silently drop astern of the big ship, until, all being filled, the order is given to the small steamboats: “Full steam ahead.” Away we go, racing and bounding, dipping and rolling, now in a straight line, now in a half-circle, on through the night.

The moon has just about sunk below the horizon. Looking back, we can see the battleships coming on slowly in our rear, ready to cover our attack. All at once our pinnace gives a great start forward, and away we go for land just discernible one hundred yards away on our left.

—North flank—
Suvla from Anzac.

Then—crack-crack! ping-ping! zip-zip! Trenches full of rifles upon the shore and surrounding hills open on us, and machine-guns, hidden in gullies or redoubts, increase the murderous hail. Oars are splintered, boats are perforated. A sharp moan, a low gurgling cry, tells of a comrade hit. Boats ground in four or five feet of water owing to the human weight contained in them. We scramble out, struggle to the shore, and, rushing across the beach, take cover under a low sandbank.

“Here, take off my pack, and I’ll take off yours.” We help one another to lift the heavy, water-soaked packs off. “Hurry up, there,” says our sergeant. “Fix bayonets.” Click! and the bayonets are fixed. “Forward!” And away we scramble up the hills in our front. Up, up we go, stumbling in holes and ruts. With a ringing cheer we charge the steep hill, pulling ourselves up by roots and branches of trees; at times digging our bayonets into the ground, and pushing ourselves up to a foothold, until, topping the hill, we found the enemy had made themselves very scarce. What had caused them to fly from a position from which they should have driven us back into the sea every time? A few scattered Turks showing in the distance we instantly fired on. Some fell to rise no more; others fell wounded and, crawling into the low bushes, sniped our lads as they went past. There were snipers in plenty, cunningly hidden in the hearts of low green shrubs. They accounted for a lot of our boys in the first few days, but gradually were rooted out. Over the hill we dashed, and down into what is now called “Shrapnel Gully,” and up the other hillside, until, on reaching the top, we found that some of the lads of the 3rd Brigade had commenced to dig in. We skirted round to the plateau at the head of the gully, and took up our line of defence.

As soon as it was light enough to see, the guns on Gaba Tepe, on our right, and two batteries away on our left opened up a murderous hail of shrapnel on our landing parties. The battleships and cruisers were continuously covering the landing of troops, broadsides going into the batteries situated in tunnels in the distant hillside. All this while the seamen from the different ships were gallantly rowing and managing the boats carrying the landing parties. Not one man that is left of the original brigade will hear a word against our gallant seamen. England may well be proud of them, and all true Australians are proud to call them comrades.

South Flank—
Gaba Tepe from Anzac.

Se-ee-e-e ... bang ... swish! The front firing line was now being baptised by its first shrapnel. Zir-zir ... zip-zip! Machine-guns, situated on each front, flank and centre, opened on our front line. Thousands of bullets began to fly round and over us, sometimes barely missing. Now and then one heard a low gurgling moan, and, turning, one saw near at hand some chum, who only a few seconds before had been laughing and joking, now lying gasping, with his life blood soaking down into the red clay and sand. “Five rounds rapid at the scrub in front,” comes the command of our subaltern. Then an order down the line: “Fix bayonets!” Fatal order—was it not, perhaps, some officer of the enemy who shouted it? (for they say such things were done). Out flash a thousand bayonets, scintillating in the sunlight like a thousand mirrors, signalling our position to the batteries away on our left and front. We put in another five rounds rapid at the scrub in front. Then, bang-swish! bang-swish! bang-swish! and over our line, and front, and rear, such a hellish fire of lyddite and shrapnel that one wonders how anyone could live amidst such a hail of death-dealing lead and shell. “Ah, got me!” says one lad on my left, and he shakes his arms. A bullet had passed through the biceps of his left arm, missed his chest by an inch, passed through the right forearm, and finally struck the lad between him and me a bruising blow on the wrist. The man next him—a man from the 9th Battalion—started to bind up his wounds, as he was bleeding freely. All the time shrapnel was hailing down on us. “Oh-h!” comes from directly behind me, and, looking around, I see poor little Lieutenant B——, of C Company, has been badly wounded. From both hips to his ankles blood is oozing through pants and puttees, and he painfully drags himself to the rear. With every pull he moans cruelly. I raise him to his feet, and at a very slow pace start to help him to shelter. But, alas! I have only got him about fifty yards from the firing line when again, bang-swish! and we were both peppered by shrapnel and shell. My rifle-butt was broken off to the trigger-guard, and I received a smashing blow that laid my cheek on my shoulder. The last I remembered was poor Lieutenant B—— groaning again as we both sank to the ground.

When I came to I found myself in Shrapnel Gully, with an A.M.C. man holding me down. I was still clasping my half-rifle. Dozens of men and officers, both Australians and New Zealanders (who had landed a little later in the day), were coming down wounded, some slightly, some badly, with arms in slings or shot through the leg, and using their rifles for crutches. Shrapnel Gully was still under shrapnel and snipers’ fire. Two or three platoon mates and myself slowly moved down to the beach, where we found the Australian Army Service Corps busily engaged landing stores and water amid shrapnel fire from Gaba Tepe. As soon as a load of stores was landed, the wounded were carried aboard the empty barges, and taken to hospital ships and troopships standing out offshore. After going to ten different boats, we came at last to the troopship Seang Choon, which had the 14th Australian Battalion aboard. They were to disembark the next morning, but owing to so many of us being wounded, they had to land straightaway.

And so, after twelve hours’ hard fighting, I was aboard a troopship again—wounded. But I would not have missed it for all the money in the world.

A. R. Perry,
10th Battalion A.I.F.

One for Chanak.

Photograph by C. E. W. BEAN

THE SUNRISE OF APRIL 15, 1915

The small boats taking troops to the shore can be seen beside the transports and close to the land