how did the anzacs get to gallipoli

 

A truce was arranged for 24 May to bury the dead, and for a few brief hours the firing ceased as Turks, Australians and New Zealanders moved hundreds of corpses into large, hastily dug pits. The two men The lads flung themselves at the foe like a band of destroying angels. If we had been in France, every man would have been sent to hospital. It was recorded that during bathing at the cove on 23 June, eight men were hit by a shell and that one of them came out of the water holding his severed arm. Six of the twelve men shown would be killed at Gallipoli. Soon hundreds of Australians were hard on the ascent of what was later known as Plugge's Plateau, their first major obstacle on the peninsula. (AWM P02226.014), Australian officers watch the landing at Anzac Cove from the deck of the troopship HMAT Mashobra, 25 April 1915. (AWM P00166.023), This photograph, showing the evacuation of casualties from Anzac, was most likely taken during the battles of the August offensive. Appropriately, the pier became known as Watson's Pier. (AWM H17024I), Members of the 1st Australian Divisional Signal Company try on some of the first consignment of gas masks delivered to Anzac, July 1915. The Navy had insisted on feeding them; it would not let them pay for canteen stores; sailors, marines, and officers shared in the expense of providing extras from the ships' canteens. In its first action of the war the 18th Battalion, which had set out from Anzac 760 strong, took 383 casualties, of whom approximately 190 were killed. At Kemal's signal, the Turks charged and swept aside the British troops manning the old New Zealand trench lines on the heights. Gallipoli did not change only the fate of the World War. The French would stage a diversionary landing on the Asian shore of the Dardanelles near Kumkale, but come off within days to support what was envisaged as a successful British capturing of the main features of the Gallipoli peninsula. Australian losses amounted to more than 8700 dead and 19,400 wounded. Although much equipment was removed from Anzac, a great deal, especially foodstuffs, was left behind or destroyed. War at Anzac soon settled into exactly what the Gallipoli planners had never envisaged—the stalemate of trench warfare. From there they opened a leisurely bombardment of the forts. Trooper Ion Idriess of the 5th Light Horse, from Queensland, recalled how the flies swarmed into a jam tin he had opened. In subsequent actions on Hill 60, the unit suffered a further 256 casualties; within a week of coming to Gallipoli more than 80 per cent of those 'big cheery fellows' were dead, missing or wounded. White devised the successful evacuation plans for all Allied forces in the Anzac and Suvla areas of Gallipoli. These men from the 12th Battalion have possibly been observing the attack Thin, haggard, as weak as kittens and covered with suppurating sores. As the great fleet of sixteen battleships sailed into the strait on the morning of 18 March 1915, one British naval officer observed 'no human power could withstand such an array of might and power'. by AJ Cumming. Only one of these men (Lieutenant Robert Baker, far right) would survive the charge at the Nek by the soldiers of the 8th and 10th Light Horse Regiments on 7 August 1915. The biscuits were so hard that they often had to be soaked in water and then grated into a mush to make them edible. Eighty feet long, twelve feet high and twenty feet wide. Many died there—some able to see the hospital ships with their green bands and red crosses no distance out to sea. Several men were ordered to get out onto the parapet and attack the Turks in the trench and across the open ground. Private Edgar Adams, 8th Battalion, taken prisoner, aged 18, Gallipoli. British troops at Helles would follow suit on 9 January, 1916. Could the Anzacs just sneak away, unseen? One loses sight of all the honour and the glory in the work we are doing. The devised evacuation plan would take place in three stages: in the ‘preliminary stage’, men and equipment would be taken off in a style consistent with a garrison preparing for a purely defensive winter campaign. One soldier wrote of the position to his right where 'all our men are wounded or dead'. Once on board, the wounded were quickly attended to, but at the landings the number of casualties quickly overwhelmed the resources available on the hospital ships. (AWM P00516.002), Lieutenant Stanley Watson (right, with pipe) supervises the construction of a pier at Anzac Cove by men of the 1st Australian Divisional Signal Company, June 1915. It was at North Beach, therefore, that many men spent their last moments at Gallipoli and caught their last glimpses in the dark of the Sari Bair Range as they pulled away from the piers. In this way, although some were killed, the Australians seized the frontline Turkish trenches. Charles Bean described the scene: The flames, reaching some of the dead or wounded, ignited their clothing and exploded their bombs and rifle ammunition, and thus pieces of burning cloth or wood were flung to other ledges, starting more fires. On 6 August there would be a diversionary Australian attack on key Turkish positions on the Lone Pine plateau, strong enough to make the enemy think that this was a major onslaught. It is suggested that by the second week of December, however, most men knew the plan – indeed, Charles Bean felt that everyone knew by 13 December. Captain Harold Jacobs, seated in front on the right, was the only one to survive the war. At the cost of more than 1100 casualties a position had been gained on the slopes of Hill 60 from which there was a view out over the plain. The British and French attempt to knock the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) out of World War One had begun. Archibald A Barwick, Diary, 22 August 1914–11 September 1915, ML MSS 1493, Item 1, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, Volume 1, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1921, Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, Volume II, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1924, Joseph Beeston, Five Months at Anzac, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1916, James Cowen, The Maoris in the Great War, Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, 1926, Roy Denning, My dear mother: a letter from a soldier at Gallipoli, Jana Nauta (ed), Yass and District Historical Society, Yass, 1998, Thomas Drane to Attorney-General, Commonwealth of Australia, letter, 2 January 1918, A432/86, 1929/3484, Pt.19, National Archives of Australia, Sir Ronald East (ed), The Gallipoli Diary of Sergeant Lawrence, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1981, Albert Facey, A Fortunate Life, Ringwood, Melbourne, 1984, Bill Gammage, The Broken Years, Australian Soldiers in the Great War, Penguin Australia, Ringwood, 1990, Patrick Kinross, Atatürk, The Rebirth of a Nation, Remizi Kitabevi, Istanbul, 2004, Private Alexander Macbeth, 24th Battalion, AIF, Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file, 1 DRL/0428, Australian war. While all this was going on there would be a new British landing at Suvla Bay during the night of 6–7 August, well north of Anzac at the far end of Ocean Beach, followed by the capture of Turkish positions further inland. Before legislation was introduced during World War I to restrict use of the word 'Anzac', commercial commemorative products using the word were being produced and distributed. It was no easy climb: the wounded or killed slid back down the slope until stopped by a bush; bayonets were dug into the earth to help them climb; and from the top of the plateau the Turkish defenders kept up a steady fire. As the Australians struggled at Lone Pine, New Zealand, Australian, and other British Empire units left the Anzac lines and headed north beside the beach. A few kilometres offshore from the old Ottoman imperial forts guarding either side of the en-trance—Seddülbahir at the toe of the Gallipoli peninsula and Kumkale on the Asian side—a small fleet of British and French warships took station. Such a restriction did not apply to personal use for family names. Charles Bean commented that the 'good cricketer is the man for the bomb'. In 2010, descendants of Thomas Drane are continuing the family tradition. Three Turkish machine guns were now brought to bear on the wheat field, inflicting heavy casualties. Two days later, after further consultation with senior commanders, he recommended the evacuation of the garrison from Gallipoli. It had struck a mine. As the boats grounded around the tip of the Ari Burnu promontory men launched themselves out, some into deep water where they drowned. This would eliminate the Turkish land and shore defences and open up the Dardanelles for the passage of the navy. Tubb was in command of a section of trench that became the scene of heavy fighting, in which he and his men were forced back several times as the Turks exploded the sandbag barricades separating them from the Australians. Crikey, things are coming on in these parts. Charles Bean described how the four-funnelled armoured cruiser HMS Bacchante gave essential artillery support at the Anzac landings by replying to Turkish shore batteries: ... every time a destroyer ran in to discharge her troops, a salvo [from the Turkish guns] sang over them. Swimming was a dangerous activity and emphasised the fact that at Anzac the soldiers were never safe from hostile fire. British troops at Helles would follow suit on 9 January, 1916. On the night of 8 January 1916, the British left Helles; the Gallipoli campaign was over. (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, a091008), Supplies and equipment were soon arranged in huge stacks on the beaches at Anzac. The initial objective—the capture of the height of Achi Baba behind the village of Krithia (modern AlÇitepe)—was nowhere near reached. Sitting on the left in the back row is Major Blair Swannell, a rugby international who, according to one witness, had 'his head half blown off' on the day of the Gallipoli landings. (AWM H11609; photographer: JW Beattie), Sydneysiders farewell AIF recruits before their departure overseas, c1915. A century ago 30,000 Anzac troops left the port of Albany bound for war in Gallipoli. In a military disaster 100 years ago, about 58,000 allied soldiers – including 29,000 British and Irish soldiers and 11,000 Australians and New Zealanders – lost their lives on the Gallipoli peninsula. But don't you hurry; let me go in front first. The tragedy of the battle for Chunuk Bair was visible in the valleys and on the slopes of the ridges. I cannot write of details but many of our brave boys were blown to pieces. It appeared in the Sydney Mail on 16 June 1915 under the heading 'Where the Australians Gained Imperishable Renown'. During the night of 2–3 May 1915 a final attempt was made to push the Anzac line forward, up towards a hill called Baby 700, on the way to Chunuk Bair. The initial assault on 21 August was a costly failure. At the end of the campaign, such games were staged to distract the enemy from preparations leading to the evacuation of Anzac in December 1915. (AWM P00210.002). 'So long, Tom', was the answer, 'see you again in half an hour'. A request from the Russian Empire, battling with Ottoman forces on its southern frontier, turned Britain's attention to the possibility of using its own superior naval power to force Germany's ally out of the war. (AWM A00882), Members of the 4th Australian Field Ambulance help to haul a large water tank up the steep slope from the beach at Anzac. On each side lay precipitous slopes. AWM G01126, A pile of equipment taken from men killed and wounded in the fighting at Lone Pine between 6–9 August 1915. After witnessing the light horse attack at the Nek on 7 August, the New Zealanders now struggled on up Rhododendron Ridge. 29 in the series of Wills Cigarettes cards. It had been estimated by the British Generals that half the force would be lost in an evacuation attempt – history now shows that, in the end, the Turkish were so deceived that 80,000 men were evacuated with only about half a dozen casualties. Their wounds were uncared for and in the heat some were in a shocking state. The drip rifle was said to be invented by Lance Corporal W. C. Scurry of the 7th Battalion, AIF, with assistance from Private A. H. Lawrence. The New Zealand and British attempt to seize and hold Chunuk Bair began after dark on 6 August. Shortly after dawn, the 16th were beaten off their newly won trenches. As always in this war, when close-packed masses of men attempted to storm strong trench positions defended by thousands of riflemen and machine guns, disaster ensued. The Anzacs left Gallipoli in three stages. There were terrible wounds to deal with. The Gallipoli campaign. Prativa Shrestha April 25, 2019 In 1915, the Anzacs fought to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula from the side of British Government. The Indian soldiers were on friendly terms with the Australians; their role was to transport supplies of food, ammunition, water and other essential stores from the landing beaches to dumps and depots closer to the front line. There was a muffled roar. In defeat, and it certainly was a defeat, what mattered was the quality of those who endured those long months of struggle, danger, ill-health and loss. I'd hardly got into position before an absolute avalanche of bombs fell, puncturing these bodies, and up on top you'd hear the air coming out of the ones up there. The 9th (Queensland), 10th (South Australia), 11th (Western Australia) and 12th (Tasmania and Western Australia) Battalions, forming the Australian 3rd Brigade, AIF, along with support units, were the first Australian troops to land at Gallipoli at dawn on 25 April 1915. The Gallipoli campaign was intended to force Germany's ally, Turkey, out of the war. These were the first Australian women to fully experience the devastating effects of modern war on their men folk, and working so close inshore they were, as Nurse Daisy Richmond reported, at times in danger from stray bullets, although the Turks never deliberately fired on the hospital ships: We are well under fire many bullets coming on the decks. For a moment a harsh red light glowed overhead from the brilliantly-lit underside of a low cloud. On the afternoon of 24 April 1915, the Anzacs boarded troopships, destroyers and battleships for their short over-night journey to Gallipoli. In early 1918, Thomas Edward Drane of Forbes, New South Wales, a veteran of the landing, wrote to the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth of Australia. (Pen and ink, pencil on paper, 33 x 20.9 cm, AWM ART00027), Living in close contact under primitive conditions, soldiers fought a constant battle with lice, which infested the seams of their clothing. They all believed him blown to pieces and buried in the debris. (AWM D00021), Lieutenant William Symons, 7th Battalion, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery at Lone Pine, while in command of a section of the newly captured trenches held by his battalion. Seated in front of the recruits are David Drysdale, a Boer War veteran and owner of the West Coast Recorder, and I O Jacobs, District Clerk of Lincoln Council. On the afternoon of 24 April 1915, the Anzacs boarded troopships, destroyers and battleships for their short over-night journey to Gallipoli. Between 19 February and 17 March 1914, a British and French naval force attempted to subdue Turkish forts and mobile howitzer batteries arrayed on either side of the Dardanelles from its mouth to the Narrows at the town of Çanakkale. At dusk the rear guard began leaving for the beach until finally there were but 1,500 left in all those miles of dark trenches. After Hill 60 serious fighting virtually came to an end on Gallipoli. He then led them straight up the height, while the Turks were firing over their heads. (AWM P02029.027), The crew of AE2, photographed before its action in the Dardanelles. These were torched as the evacuation took place, to prevent their use by the Turks. (AWM G01432; photographer: CEW Bean), Crude crosses mark the graves of Lieutenant Street of the 3rd Battalion, killed in action on 19 May 1915, aged 21, and of the thirty-three men of his battalion killed with him. The Turks, feeling themselves vulnerable from both front and rear, would retreat. 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