Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War

by E. C. Buley

The net result of these tactics was that a surprisingly large percentage of the men reached their objective unharmed. Where opposition had to be overcome, the men massed silently in the darkness, and charged at the word of their officers. The terror inspired among the Turks by these midnight charges, coming suddenly out of the silent darkness, has been testified by the prisoners taken.

Thus the 4th Brigade reached its first objective after the wonderful night march; but the expected supports were not forthcoming. During the day that followed, the enemy appeared in great force, and there was some stiff fighting. The 13th Battalion captured the emplacement of a 75-gun, which had worked great havoc during the preceding six weeks in the Australasian trenches. The 15th Battalion saw the gun disappearing round one long bend of a valley, as they emerged from the scrub at the elbow below. A few shots were fired at it, but the chance was lost, by at most two minutes.

The 14th Battalion captured a Turkish bakery, and a Turkish major in charge of it; also a telephone exchange and a very sullen German lieutenant. Later in the day the 16th Battalion encountered a strong force of the enemy, very skilfully posted, and suffered very severe losses.

On August 7 a fresh advance was made from the Aghyl Dere to a gully still further north; the Asmak Dere. As they advanced they drove the enemy back, and got into touch with a regiment of Sikhs from Suvla Bay. So reinforced they made an attack upon the big hill, but found that by this time the Turks had come up from further south. The effect of the frontal attacks from the old Anzac line had expended itself, and the enemy had moved north in force. It is worthy of mention that the official estimate of the total number of Turks mustered to the defence of Sari Bair places it at 75,000. They were certainly strong enough to check the attack on Hill 971 without much difficulty.

In the evening of the same day (August 7) the 4th Brigade attacked the height of Abduo Rahman Bair, running out from Koja Chemen to the north, and met a perfect hell of machine-gun fire. In less than an hour's fighting they lost 1,000 men, and were nearly surrounded. They managed to withdraw to their original positions, and spent the night resisting a series of vicious attacks from the intrepid enemy. In this fighting they inflicted severe loss, without budging one foot from the line they had taken up.

From this point, slightly south of the hill known as Kaiajik Aghala, or Hill 60, they saw the loss of the crest of Chunuk Bair, and the great slaughter of Turks that followed. And there they remained for the next fortnight, while the line across the valley which led to the village of Biyuk Anafarta was being strengthened. On August 21 it was deemed that the time had come for an attack upon Hill 60 itself, and in this the 4th Brigade participated.

They were joined by General Russell and his New Zealanders, and by the 18th Battalion of Australian Infantry, who had landed on the preceding day as the advance guard of the Second Division of the A.I.F. The fighting was desperate and the newcomers suffered most severely in their baptism of fire. In the end the capture of Hill 60 had to be postponed.

But on August 27 the attack was renewed, this time with success. The operations are clearly told in the official dispatch:—

"The conduct of the attack was again entrusted to Major-General Cox, at whose disposal were placed detachments from the 4th and 5th Australian Brigades, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, and the 5th Connaught Rangers. The advance was timed to take place at 5 p.m. on August 27, after the heaviest artillery bombardment we could afford. This bombardment seemed effective; but the moment the assailants broke cover they were greeted by an exceeding hot fire from the enemy field-guns, rifles, and machine-guns, followed after a brief interval by a shower of heavy shell, some of which, most happily, pitched into the trenches of the Turks. On the right the detachment from the 4th and 5th Australian Brigades could make no headway against a battery of machine-guns which confronted them. In the centre the New Zealanders made a most determined onslaught, and carried one side of the topmost knoll. Hand-to-hand fighting continued here till 9.30 p.m., when it was reported that nine-tenths of the summit had been gained.

"On the left the 250 men of the 5th Connaught Rangers excited the admiration of all beholders by the swiftness and cohesion of their charge. In five minutes they had carried their objective, the northern Turkish communications, when they at once set to and began a lively bomb-fight along the trenches against strong parties which came hurrying up from the enemy supports and afterwards from their reserves. At midnight fresh troops were to have strengthened our grip upon the hill, but before that hour the Irishmen had been out-bombed, and the 9th Australian Light Horse, who had made a most plucky attempt to recapture the lost communication trench, had been repulsed. Luckily, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles refused to recognize that they were worsted. Nothing would shift them. All that night and all next day, through bombing, bayonet charges, musketry, shrapnel, and heavy shell, they hung on to their 150 yards of trench. At 1 a.m. on August 29 the 10th Light Horse made another attack on the lost communication trenches to the left, carried them, and finally held them. This gave us complete command of the underfeature, an outlook over the Anafarta Sagir valley, and safer lateral communications between Anzac and Suvla Bay.