ACHI BABA FROM HIGH GROUND ABOVE “LANCASHIRE LANDING.”
MORTO BAY AND ENTRANCE TO THE NARROWS.
The First Battle—May 6, 1915
A general advance of the whole line, stretching right across the peninsula, from a point about three miles north of Tekke Burnu on the left to a point about one mile north of De Tott’s Battery on the right, was ordered for 10 a.m. that morning. The 6th L.F. gained more than 400 yards before being held up by heavy fire from rifles and machine guns. This was the greatest advance made by any unit that day, and the ground won was held. The 7th were in support of the 6th. One company of the 8th reinforced the extreme left; another company supported the left of the 88th Brigade on the right of the Gully Ravine. This ravine, about fifty yards wide, with steep cliffs forty to sixty feet high, formed a dangerous gap in the line, and during the night its bed was occupied by another company of the 8th. Under cover of night the trenches, having been cleared of dead and dying, were deepened and improved.
The attempt to continue the advance next morning was not successful. The 5th L.F. deployed and passed through the 6th in the front line, the rest of the Brigade being in support, to press home the attack. The Brigade’s objective was a point about a mile to the north of the furthest point reached by British troops throughout the campaign. Some parties of the 5th gained a little ground, but they were enfiladed, the intensity of the fire drove them back, and the line remained unaltered. A renewal of the attack in the afternoon, when the Brigade was reinforced by two battalions of the 87th Brigade, also failed. At sundown the Brigade was relieved, and the Lancashire Fusiliers rested on the cliffs until the following evening, when they were moved to a less exposed bivouac further inland, among the trees near Morto Bay. The Territorials had been severely tested and had stood it well. They had been thrust at once into the fighting line because they were badly needed. When they landed the position of the depleted 29th Division was precarious. The men were exhausted, for there is a limit to human endurance, and that limit had almost been reached. It was vital, if they were not to be driven into the sea by force of numbers, that an advance should be made and less exposed positions secured; and the arrival of the Territorial Brigade had enabled the worn-out Regulars to attain this object. No. 2 Section Signal Company had done good work. For two days their tasks had been done in the open, under continuous fire, all lines having been laid on the surface by hand.
By some blunder or misunderstanding on the part of the Naval Authorities most of the transports conveying the remainder of the Division were sent northwards up the coast to Gaba Tepe, instead of to Cape Helles. The first to arrive, the Derflinger with the 5th and 6th Manchesters on board, was chased by a destroyer and brought back with all speed to Helles, where these two battalions disembarked on the evening of May 6 at “W” and “V” beaches. The 7th and 8th Manchesters landed on the same beaches on the following day under shell fire, which caused several casualties. The Manchester Brigade assembled on the cliffs between the beaches before moving inland to the rendezvous known as Shrapnel Valley. The other transports, including the Crispin with Headquarters on board, arrived off Gaba Tepe on May 8, and anchored there for the night. In the morning Major-General Douglas, failing to obtain a reply to his ship’s signals, visited the Senior Naval Transport Officer on board H.M.S. Queen, and the transports were soon steaming southwards, Headquarters disembarking at “W” beach in the afternoon of May 9.
The disembarkation of the Division was practically completed on the 11th, though two companies of the 10th Manchesters and one of the 5th East Lancashires, when about to follow their comrades ashore, were carried off by the naval authorities for some unexplained reason, and were not landed until the 14th. The medical and surgical equipment of the 3rd Field Ambulance was also lost in the same way, and was not recovered for a fortnight. The 5th Battery, R.F.A., and two guns of the 6th Battery had been landed, when orders were received that, as the area occupied by the British was so small, sufficient space would not be available for the batteries, so the Artillery must return to Egypt. It was, however, decided to allow the guns which had already been brought ashore to remain. Lieut.-Colonel Birtwistle, commanding the 1st Brigade, R.F.A., had gone ashore with the 5th Battery, and he was placed in charge of a sub-group of Australian and New Zealand batteries. The mortification of the other batteries was intense, but after four more months in Egypt they again sighted Cape Helles, and this time were allowed to land. For the same reason—congestion on the occupied territory—the 1st, 3rd and 4th Companies, A.S.C., with the exception of the Supply personnel, were ordered back to Egypt.
The vagaries of the naval transport authorities which had sent some of the transports on a tour along the coast were not regarded as an unmitigated evil by those of the wanderers upon whom responsibility weighed less heavily, for they were given the opportunity to survey the scene of operations from various angles, from Tekke Burnu to Fisherman’s Hut beyond the headland of Gaba Tepe, where lay the Anzacs, and from Cape Helles to Morto Bay and the entrance to the Straits. They witnessed the bombardment of the enemy’s positions from sea and land; and some, with good glasses, were able to follow the movements of the Lancashire Fusiliers during the heavy fighting of the 6th and 7th of May, and could actually see them move forward to attack, their bayonets flashing in the sun, and concentrate on certain points when the advance was held up. On the right the French Colonial troops were seen, carrying all before them with their usual dash, only, alas! to be driven back a few hours later. They passed close to the mighty Queen Elizabeth, that embodiment of concentrated sea-power which—as many anticipated—had proved so comparatively ineffective against an enemy on land, though the big naval shells which burst in and around Krithia Village threw up clouds of dust and smoke and debris seventy feet in height. There also were the French men-of-war and the “Packet of Woodbines,” as the five-funnel Russian cruiser Askold was termed.