The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli

by Bryan Cooper

The dug-out that is dug for another is not so elaborate. You burrow into the vertical face of the hill until a cavity large enough to contain a man is created, and leave it for the occupant to make the best of. Before he has learnt to do this, he has probably bumped his head several times and filled his hair with earth. At the same time, however small it may be, it is unwise to forsake the burrow constructed for you by the experienced inhabitant and strike out a line for yourself. Two officers who attempted to do this were quickly disillusioned. Their first effort installed them in a cemetery, where a corpse was awaiting burial. Their second reopened a recently filled-in latrine, while the third found them in the midst of buried Turks. Then they gave it up.

It is now necessary to return to the doings of the 6th Leinster Regiment, and since this battalion was detached from the 29th Brigade throughout the battle of Sari Bair, it will be simpler to give an account of all its actions in this chapter. Though it played a distinguished part in the fight, yet its deeds were performed in a separate theatre and can be understood without a detailed description of the operations elsewhere. At about 3 a.m. on August 7th, the Leinsters were detached from the 29th Brigade and allotted to the 1st Australian Division in order to act as General Reserve for the Northern sector of the old Anzac Defences.

In framing his plans, Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood was compelled to take into account the possibility that instead of concentrating their forces at Suvla or on Sari Bair, the enemy might decide to make a desperate attack on Anzac, in the hope of breaking through there and cutting the columns operating on Sari Bair off from the sea. It would, no doubt, have been possible for us to obtain supplies and ammunition from Suvla once the landing there had been effected, but the organisation of new lines of communication must inevitably have taken time, and the position of the force would have been a critical one. Two battalions from the General Reserve were, therefore, placed at the disposal of the 1st Australian Division, and of these the 6th Leinsters was one.

The dispositions adopted were as follows: “B” Company, under Major Stannus, went to Courtney’s Ridge, and “C” Company, under Major Colquhoun, to Quinn’s Post. The other two companies and Battalion Headquarters remained at the end of Shrapnel Gully. This disposition was adhered to throughout the 7th and 8th, the detached companies earning the praise of the Australians to whom they were attached by the keenness and alacrity with which they carried out the duties that fell to their lot. Naturally, like everyone else in the Anzac area, they suffered from shrapnel and snipers, but the casualties during this period were not heavy.

At sunset on the 8th, the detached companies were withdrawn to Battalion Headquarters, and the whole unit was warned to hold itself in readiness to move at five minutes’ notice. By this time it was clear to the Higher Command that little danger was to be apprehended from Turkish attacks on Anzac, while the struggle for the Sari Bair ridge was still in a doubtful state, and the presence of a fresh battalion might make the difference between victory and defeat. Accordingly the men of the Leinsters lay down formed in close column of platoons, girt with all their accoutrements and tried to slumber.

Sleep does not come easily when one is wearing full equipment and another man’s boots are within an inch of one’s face, while an increasing bombardment rages all round; but at Anzac men were tired enough to welcome any possibility of rest. During the night they were not disturbed by fresh orders, and at dawn there was sufficient time to cook tea and refill water-bottles. At 8 a.m. on the 9th, the battalion marched off making its way northward in single file until Number 1 Post was reached. Here there was a halt and a long wait, during which the battalion crowded up behind such shelter as was afforded by a small knoll. Water-bottles were again replenished, and the provident forethought of Colonel Craske procured a number of petrol tins filled with water, which were carried by the battalion as a reserve. After a midday meal of bully and biscuit had been eaten, the battalion received orders to proceed to the relief of the New Zealand battalions holding Rhododendron Spur. This ridge, which was an outcrop of the main Sari Bair range, had been seized by the New Zealanders at dawn on the 7th, and was still held by them.

On the way there, the Leinsters met with an experience similar to that endured by the 31st Brigade at Suvla on the morning of the 7th, for in order to reach the gully leading where they wanted to go, they were compelled to traverse 400 yards of open country, which was exposed to heavy hostile fire. Not only were snipers hidden in the scrub on the hillsides doing their worst, but the space was also covered by a machine-gun high on the slopes of the Chunuk Bair, and shrapnel was continually bursting over it.

Little spurts of dust continually rising where the bullets had struck made the prospect of crossing this area an unattractive one, but the Leinsters doubled briskly across, half a platoon at a time, and luckily did not incur severe losses. They then entered a gully which was not much safer than the open space, as every corner was under machine-gun fire, and during half the time the men were bending double to avoid observation, and during the other half racing forward to avoid its consequences. Somewhat exhausted by this, and by the great heat, the Leinsters reached the foot of Rhododendron Ridge at three in the afternoon.