Gallipoli Diary

by John Graham Gillam

August 21st.

I awake at 2 a.m. and find a blaze of lights on our starboard, and so sleepy am I that for the life of me I cannot make out what is happening or where I am. There seem to be thousands of little fairy lamps, and at first I think that we are entering an English watering-place alongside an illuminated pier. Coming to my senses, I find that we are passing close to three hospital ships, which are always illuminated at night, and entering a small bay. After a lot of manœuvring, we get off into lighters and are towed for a mile, coming finally alongside an improvised pier, where we disembark, thence on to a sandy beach, where inquiries are made as to our future. I go off in search of a Supply depot, but can only find one belonging to the 11th Division. The Brigade move off inland to a place called Chocolate Hill, the other side of a salt lake, and I lie down for an hour behind some hay.

I awake at 5 a.m., get up and shake myself and wander about, endeavouring to gain some information. I find Panton, with whom I go up on to the high ground behind the beach.

I learn that this is called “C” Beach. It is a small beach, flanked on its north side by a high rocky promontory called Lala Baba, the other side of which is Suvla Bay. Suvla Bay is in turn flanked on its north side by a high rocky promontory, jutting nearly two miles from the mainland into the sea. Where the bay washes the mainland, there starts a salt lake, looking like a large flat, sandy plain, evidently under water in the winter. In the background are high rocky hills, covered with gorse, looking beautiful in the early morning sun. At the foot, on the left and right of the Salt Lake, lies meadow land, with occasional clusters of olive groves. The hills on the promontory to the north of Suvla Bay continue in a range inland, curving round the low land immediately in front of us, when to the right of where I am standing they join and rise to a high peak called Sari Bair. Sari Bair, which commands the right of our line—for I learn we are on the low land—sweeps down to the Australians’ position at Anzac or Gaba Tepe.

One or two smaller hills, from fifty to a hundred feet high, stand near to us, rising out of the low meadow and wooded land. Some are in our hands, and some are still Turkish. One hill in particular, lying at the other end of the Salt Lake, inland from its centre, is called Chocolate Hill, and I learn D.H.Q. are to be there to-night. I hear also that there is to be a battle to-day. Many troops are landing, including a whole Division of Yeomanry, amongst them the Warwicks, Worcesters, and Gloucesters.

I meet one of our D.H.Q. Staff, and he, with Panton, proceeds to Chocolate Hill, while I continue to make inquiries as to where I am to go. Nobody appears to know or to care, and so I go on to the top of Lala Baba and have another look round. On the opposite side of the bay I see the promontory alive with troops. In the centre of the bend of the bay I see hospital tents pitched. Four battleships are at anchor in the bay, together with a few transports and Supply ships. They are shut in and protected from submarine attack from the outer sea by a boom of submerged nets stretching between the ends of two flanking promontories. Over the wooded low land now and again there begins to burst Turkish shrapnel. Half-way up the promontory on the opposite side of the bay I see stacks of Supply boxes. I go back to “C” Beach and call at the depot to make further inquiries, and learn that the Supply depot that I have seen on the other side of the bay is on “A” Beach, and, as no orders have been received to feed the 29th from “C” Beach depot, the “A” Beach depot must be my destination.

As I stroll across “C” Beach I notice a damaged aeroplane, around which men are clustering, inspecting it with curiosity. A Naval Lieutenant comes up and clears them away, saying to me that if only a few men collect together in a bunch they are very soon shelled by a Turkish 6-inch gun on Sari Bair, which commands the beach.

I walk up to the back of the beach once more, and start for a tramp round the bay to the Supply depot that I see in the distance. It is to be a long tramp, and I feel a bit tired and devilish hungry. On the other side of Lala Baba I pass 18-pounder batteries in position, hidden from the enemy by little rises of the ground and screened from aeroplane observation by gorse-bushes. Their position tells me that our front line cannot be very far inland. Presumably the same thing has happened that happened at Helles on April 25th. We have got on shore all right, but that is all. The Turks hold all the prominent positions, and appear to have us in the hollow of their hands. I walk along on the sandy beach, very tiring for my feet, until I reach “B” Beach, which is in the centre of the beach running between the two promontories of the bay; there I come to a casualty clearing station of the Welsh Division. I am dog-tired and almost faint from hunger, and call in, begging some breakfast. They tell me breakfast is at eight, and make me lie down to get an hour’s sleep, for it is seven o’clock. At eight I wake up and join the officers at breakfast. Hot cocoa, without milk, for milk is reserved for the patients; bacon, biscuits, and jam. No bread has been issued at Suvla up to now. I then learn some news. We had actually taken the high hills on the left of Anafarta Village, which lies just behind the lower hills in front of us. The Gurkhas and Australians had actually been on top of Sari Bair—had been treated to the joy of looking down on to the Dardanelles on the other side.

Something went amiss. Our troops had to retire, and now our line ran from the hills on the left of the bay, but about a mile and a half inland on the mainland, dropping down to the low lands in front, continuing in front of Chocolate Hill, which was ours, across the low land on the right of Chocolate Hill, then running gently a short way up the slope of Sari Bair, finally joining hands with the Anzacs in position some distance up the slope of the hills in front of Gaba Tepe.

Burnt Hill, a small eminence in front of Chocolate Hill, is to be attacked to-day. This is so named because of the gorse which had been burnt by the shelling at the landing. We saw this burning gorse from Helles on the 7th and 8th.