3. Any dead belonging to the Turks on our side of the line were to be carried on stretchers to the centre line. The enemy was to do the same for us, so that each side would bury its own dead, and so identify them.
4. Rifles found on No Man's Land were to be collected, and immediately placed on stretchers. No man was to carry a rifle in his hand. Each side was to carry off its own rifles found in its burying area. Enemy rifles were to have the bolts removed, and were to be then carried on stretchers, and handed over to the original owners.
The morning of "Armistice Day" broke with a steady drizzle. At the appointed hour fifty Turks, with Red Crescents on their arms, and fifty Australians and New Zealanders with Red Cross armlets, met on the extreme right. Each party had a staff officer and a medical officer. The men carried short stakes with little white strips of calico on the top, and, headed by the staff officers, who each walked near his own front-line trench, the party went right down the centre of No Man's Land, sticking in their little white flags.
By about 10 o'clock the demarcation was complete. As the party had moved down No Man's Land, heads appeared over both parapets, and, cautiously first, and then quite boldly, the soldiers on both sides scrambled up on the parapets and experienced the uncanny sensation of safety.
The burying parties struggled up the greasy clay tracks, marched out with their shovels and their stretchers, and the day's work began in earnest. And what a work! In some sectors the dead lay in heaps. In one area of about an acre, three hundred bodies were tallied—mostly Turks. "They are lying just as thick as sheep in a yard," said a Hawke's Bay boy in the demarcation party. It was soon realized that proper burials were out of the question, and that it was impossible to carry the enemy's dead to the centre line. A mutual agreement was made to cover up friend and foe, the Turk on his side and we on ours. So the Anzac dead in the Turkish area were not identified by us; these are the men who eventually were described as "Missing, believed killed" by the Court of Enquiry.
Armistice Day, May 24, 1915.
These two pictures were taken by Brig.-General Ryan, of the Australian Medical Corps. The top one shows the Turkish Staff Officer who brought in the flag of truce. While going through our lines he was blindfolded, according to custom, and escorted by a British Staff Officer.
The bottom picture shows the burying parties at work in No Man's Land.