The Australian Mounted Division advanced a few miles, covering the right flank of the 75th Division, and seized Tel el Turmus without encountering serious opposition. During the day the headquarters of this division, at the village of El Jeladiyeh, three miles east of El Suafir el Sharkiye, got into touch by helio with the 53rd Division twenty miles away to the east, and exchanged news. This was the first and last communication between the two parts of our force, from the day of the battle of Sharia, till the 7th of December, when the 10th A.L.H. Regiment gained touch with the 53rd Division in the hills ten miles south of Jerusalem, two days before the city fell.
Next day, as soon as it was light enough to see, our line was on the move in pursuit of the enemy.
Early in the morning a couple of armoured cars, sent forward to reconnoitre, entered Junction Station, and drove suddenly into a crowd of some 400 Turks employed in setting fire to the buildings, and doing a little private looting on their own account. The commander of the leading car summoned these men to surrender, and was answered by a scattering volley from their rifles. Whereupon he shut the armoured doors of his car, and charged down upon them, with his machine gun going full blast. The discomfited Turks turned and fled, pursued for two miles by the cars. Over 200 of them were killed or wounded; the remainder escaped into the hills.
The 75th Division entered Junction Station shortly afterwards, and collected 100 prisoners, a number of guns, and a quantity of rolling stock.
The Australian Mounted Division pushed on to the north-east, the 4th Brigade seizing El Tine Station, on the Beersheba line, early in the morning, where large quantities of ammunition and stores were found intact. Continuing their move, units of the division penetrated through the enemy front, which was now broken at Junction Station, and reached the railway two miles east of the station.
The Yeomanry Division, moving in advance of the 52nd, pushed through Akir to Naane. The two brigades which occupied the latter place were heavily shelled by the enemy from about Abu Shusheh, some three miles farther east, but no other opposition was met with.
The rapidity with which the Mughar-Kutrah line had been captured on the previous day had resulted in the Turkish army being again broken into two separate parts. The thrust of the Yeomanry to Naane had now driven a wedge between these two parts, and the operations of the next two days were directed towards widening the gap. The larger portion of the enemy force entered the hills to the east, and commenced to retire along the main road towards Jerusalem, shepherded by the Yeomanry and Australian Mounted Divisions. The smaller portion retired northwards over the plain, followed by the Anzac Division. The 1st A.L.H. and New Zealand Brigades made good Kubeibe and Zernuka early in the morning, and then advanced on Ramleh and Khurbet Surafend respectively, with the Camel Corps Brigade patrolling the sand dune country on their left. The New Zealanders encountered a force of Turks on the high hill of Ayun Kara (Richon-le-Zion) about two in the afternoon, and drove them off without much difficulty. Half an hour later the Turks emerged from the shelter of the large fruit orchards and vineyards which surround Ayun Kara, and launched an unexpected counter-attack on the New Zealand Brigade. They were well supplied with bombs, and pushed their attack fiercely right up to our line. The New Zealanders then went in with the bayonet, and drove them back to the bottom of the hill, inflicting heavy losses on them. Two squadrons from the 1st Brigade and a company of the Camel Corps reinforced the New Zealand Brigade, which had suffered somewhat severely, but the enemy had had enough, and made no further attack. This was the only serious fighting of the day.
The two brigades held an outpost line for the night from the sea coast, through Ayun Kara to Khurbet Deiran, in touch with the Yeomanry on their right. The Camel Corps Brigade occupied a support line a short distance farther south. The Yeomanry Division remained in occupation of Akir and Naane, watching the northern exits from the latter place, with the 52nd Division lying behind it about El Mughar. The 75th Division had a brigade in Junction Station, and the remainder of the division at Mesmiye, while the Australian Mounted Division held an outpost line in observation of the country to the south-east.
