CHAPTER 10

‘Come on boys.
Come on. Come on.’

As 4.30 am, the appointed time for the attack, approached, the men on Russell’s Top, Pope’s Hill and Quinn’s Post stood waiting in the dim light for the simple orders that would launch them against the enemy’s earthen fortifications. Further along the ridge, up around Chunuk Bair, the grand plan was beginning to fall apart with the New Zealanders unable to get into position to make their final assault on the heights.

All through the early hours of the morning, shells had been falling at intervals on the Turkish lines. One misdirected round crashed onto the Australians’ parapet, close to the brigade’s temporary headquarters. It took a few moments for composure to be regained, and Antill moved deeper into the dug-out for safety.

Sergeant Pinnock, who was waiting as part of the first line, later recalled: ‘The warships had been pounding their trenches with heavy guns. They kept it up for two hours. It was simply one continual roar and nerve racking in the extreme. You can’t for a moment imagine the awful din of exploding shells, it was really awful.’¹

Just as the watches on Russell’s Top reached 4.23 am, and the artillery shelling was expected to reach a crescendo, the firing ceased, ‘cut short as if by a knife’.² White and Dale were standing with Major Redford and Lieutenant Robinson. Robinson, who would be the only one in the group to survive the next several minutes, recalled:

For a few moments no one spoke. Then the Colonel said: ‘Come along Dale’, and I remarked to Redford: ‘What do you make of it? There is seven minutes to go.’ He replied: ‘They may give them a heavy burst to finish.’ For three minutes hardly a shot came from the Turks and then a scattered rifle fire broke out, above which could be heard distinctly the rattle of about 10 shots as each Turk machine-gun was made ready for action. I got my men ready and shook hands with Major Redford.³

This pause of several minutes erased any last hope that the enemy could be taken by surprise. They were now waiting for signs of movement from the Australians. When Captain George Hore, who was in the second line, wrote later to his mother, he confirmed the failure of the timings.

At 4 am we stood to arms in our trenches. In 25 minutes [the bombardment] stopped. Immediately a fierce crackle of fire came out of the Turkish trenches. We knew we were doomed. At 23 minutes past 4 we stood up on the banquettes of our trenches, and in a few minutes the crackle of musketry turned into an awful roar. Never have I heard such an awful sound and no wonder.⁴

The critical pause was not apparent to everyone. Some survivors’ accounts make no mention of it at all, although the recollections of others are quite clear. Kent Hughes wrote to the official historian after the war: ‘As far as I remember the bombardment did stop early, but at a time when seconds are minutes and minutes seem like hours I should hardly like to hazard a guess at the length of the period.’⁵

The men of the first wave put their feet onto pegs or in niches cut in the trench wall, others in front of the long sap gripped their rifles, while those in the shallow saps crouched ready to scramble out. Then on the order from White – ‘Go!’ – they climbed up, with their colonel at the lead. The moment they rose above ground level the rifle and machine-gun fire erupted as a roar sweeping through the Australians’ ranks.

The historian Charles Bean wrote:

I shall never forget that moment. I was making my way along a path from the left of the area and was passing not very far away when [the] tremendous fusillade broke out. It rose from a fierce crackle into a roar in which you could distinguish neither rifle nor machine-gun, but just one continuous roaring tempest. One could not help an involuntary shiver: God help anyone that was out in thattornado.⁶

Over 150 Australians in no-man’s-land seemed to go limp and then drop like rag dolls. It was ‘as though their limbs had become strings,’ said one observer at Pope’s Hill.⁷ Others, whose bodies were struck by bombs or machine-gun bursts, were thrown violently about. The more fortunate were immediately wounded and fell back into their trenches.

Sergeant Pinnock records:

We all got over and cheered, but they were waiting ready for us and simply gave us a solid wall of lead. We did not get ten yards. Everyone fell like lumps of meat. I got mine shortly after I got over the bank, and it felt like a million ton hammer falling on my shoulder. However I managed to crawl back.⁸

The terrible sound of the Turks’ fire became an enduring memory of every survivor in the 8th Light Horse. Each enemy soldier sighting down his rifle must have squeezed his trigger as soon as the Australians burst into view. The machine-guns sustained their fire, while the riflemen reloaded with mechanical speed, firing again and again.

Lieutenant Eliot Wilson, who commanded B Squadron’s D Troop, was in the forefront of the charge. He was out waving his revolver, calling ‘Now then boys’, when he was shot. He managed to stagger on until a bomb exploded alongside him and he fell. One witness said there was an explosion under his body, probably from his own revolver. Major Redford died close by.

A sergeant wrote:

Our gallant major, whilst lying facing the enemy’s trench (10 yards away) in the front of his men received a bullet through his brain as he raised his head slightly to observe. He died with a soft sigh and laid his head gently on his hands as if tired. A braver and more honourable man never donned uniform.⁹

Within several seconds almost every officer in the first wave was hit; there was not to be a single survivor from among them. One troop had been led out by a sergeant, 23-year-old Clifton Grenfell. He was killed instantly. The torrent of metal tore through the ranks, cutting them down in swathes.

Trooper Jack Dale was one who was able to reach some sheltered ground:

Those of us that got over the very slight rise of ground were simply mown down. I was one of three who were carrying a big plank which we had to throw over any entanglements, and then the trenches when we got there. We got pretty close, and were lucky to get behind a slight rise in the ground. We had to lie flat on our stomachs. We were pretty safe from the bullets [and] started to dig ourselves in, as it would have been madness and certain death to charge against such a fire. Wounded fellows were crawling past us, some with terrible wounds caused by bombs. All you could do was to make way and help them past.¹⁰

Another trooper carrying one of the planks was Lionel Simpson. Interviewed in 1984, this decorated old soldier, a holder of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, then in his mid-nineties, was the last known living survivor of the charge. He recalled running forward until he felt the man on the other end holding back. He looked behind to see that his comrade had been wounded. In an instant he too was hit, in the head and the shoulder, and fell to the ground. He remembered feeling ‘disgusted’ when he heard some of the survivors calling to others to fall back. Simpson was one of Wilson’s troop, and last saw his leader running forward waving his revolver, yelling ‘Come on boys. Come on. Come on.’¹¹

The assault on The Nek was to coincide with similar efforts on Pope’s Hill and Quinn’s Post, and with the big attack on Chunuk Bair. At Pope’s Hill two squadrons of the 1st Light Horse Regiment, which were temporarily commanded by Major William Glasgow – a man of powerful personality who would rise to high command by the end of the war – faced the Turks across a gully. It was planned that one part of this force would get down into the deep sheltered end of the gully and make its rush from there. The assault by the two squadrons would be coordinated with movements on The Nek. The confusion over timings on Russell’s Top did not matter as much as it might have, because the Turks detected movement and the 1st

The opposing trenches at The Nek.

Light Horse had to make its assault prematurely. The New South Welshmen went into heavy Turkish fire and launched themselves upon the enemy with bayonets and bombs. They managed to get well into the trenches, fighting desperately, while their losses mounted rapidly. They were holding on, fighting wild bombing duels, as the attack on The Nek reached a climax.

At Quinn’s Post the attackers were from the 2nd Light Horse Regiment and they well knew that their task would be madness under normal circumstances. They had been reassured by the same promises that had been given to the 3rd Light Horse Brigade. They were told that the capture of German Officers’ Trench would remove the threat of enfilading fire from their right, the New Zealanders would have captured Chunuk Bair and be moving down on the enemy’s rear, and the artillery would have provided a devastating preliminary bombardment. As dawn approached, the Queenslanders saw that the artillery shelling had had very little effect, and that Chunuk Bair and German Officers’ Trench were still held by the enemy.

As with The Nek, the attack at Quinn’s Post would be undertaken by four waves of troops, but here each wave would have only 50 men. Colonel Harry Chauvel, the most competent of the light horse brigade commanders who within a few years would lead the Desert Mounted Corps, allowed the attack to proceed. The first line went forward, and like their comrades at The Nek and Pope’s Hill, they faced a storm of fire. With only one exception, every man in the first line was killed or wounded.

Major George Bourne, who led the attack, took decisive action. Seeing nothing to be gained in sending more men, he ordered the second line to stand fast. He consulted with his commanding officer, and the action was stopped. Chauvel confirmed the order and no more lives were wasted on this futile venture.

At The Nek the second line was climbing out of the trenches while rifle and machine-gun fire was still sweeping through the remnants of the first. Had Lieutenant Colonel White stayed behind, where he could command his squadrons, rather than deciding that he had to lead them, he would have seen the destruction of half of his fine regiment. Perhaps he would then have acted as Bourne had at Quinn’s Post and prevented the next line from leaving. But White was dead, and Major Arthur Deeble, who commanded the second wave, took no restraining action. The attack proceeded under its own momentum and, moments after the first line went over, the second followed.

On the right half of the line, which was the most exposed, four troops scrambled out of the trench. George Grant, a New Zealand-born lieutenant, had just arrived at Anzac, having left Melbourne in early May with the regiment’s fifth batch of reinforcements. The troop he led out at The Nek was quickly shot down, and Grant fell in a pile of men. He lay dead with three others, on top of an unconscious Trooper White, who later struggled free and got to safety. Lieutenants Thomas Howard and Charles Carthew, and most of their men, were killed at the same time. Of all the officers in his group, only Captain George Hore survived to go any appreciable distance. He was later able to get back and received some treatment before he was sent off to hospital. Hore left this record:

We saw our fate in front of us, but we were pledged to go and, to their eternal credit, the word being given, not a man in the second line stayed in his trench. As I jumped out I looked down the line, and they were all rising over the parapet. We bent low, and ran as hard as we could. Ahead we could see the trench aflame with rifle-fire. All round were smoke and dust kicked up by the bullets. I felt a sting on my shoulder. I passed our first line, all dead or dying it seemed, and went on a bit further, and flung myself down about 40 yards from the Turkish trenches. I was a bit ahead of my men, having got a good start and travelled lighter. I looked around and saw them all down mostly hit. I did not know what to do. I was protected by a little – a very little fold in the ground and by a dead Turk – dead about six weeks.¹²

Doug Bethune, a South African War veteran, was a temporary sergeant who was killed in the first line. His younger brother, Norman, also to die later in the war, was in the second line and for a brief while was caught up among the men falling back from the initial charge. He survived to give an account:

The order was given just about daybreak … and the first line (in which Doug’s troop was first) went out. Numbers were shot almost as soon as they got out of our saps and few if any reached the Turkish trenches. Some of the second line (of which my troop was part) just got out and that was all when the few that were left got orders to retire and came back onto us, in fact before a lot of us were able to get out they came back into the narrow saps in which we had been waiting. It was a nasty thing altogether and nothing was gained.¹³

Back among the 9th Light Horse, Sergeant Cameron was able to see what was happening.

We saw them climb out and move forward about ten yards and lie flat. The second line did likewise … as they rose to charge the Turkish Machine-Guns just poured out lead and our fellows went down like corn before the scythe. The distance to the enemy trench was less than 50 yards yet not one of those two lines got anywhere near it.¹⁴

So intense was the fire that nowhere was safe. Lieutenant Colonel Miell, who had gone up to an observation position, looked over the parapet to watch the progress. He was shot through the head and killed. This meant that two of the brigade’s regimental commanders were now dead.

On the left of the line there was some slight depression in front of the long forward sap. Even so, Lieutenant Robinson, an officer described by one of his men as ‘a big old cocky, [and] a good man’,¹⁵ was immediately hit as he rose:

As I climbed out of the ‘secret sap’ on the extreme left, my hand was shattered and I was almost knocked senseless by a bursting shell or a bomb. By some means, either falling or struggling frantically I got back in to the sap, where I remember trying to think what happened and suddenly becoming aware of a terrific rifle fire and later was fully restored to my senses by a lot of men unceremoniously walking over me.¹⁶

Robinson’s troop sergeant was Charles Lyons, who takes up the story from this point in his account: ‘Our officer was shot through the hand. I was left in charge and being unable to jam past the men, jumped up and ran round to the front of the sap, calling on the men to follow, but just as I got out, the 1st line fell back nearly all wounded.’¹⁷

Some of the survivors were now calling for everyone to fall back. Lyon saw his corporal, Arthur Tetley, lying seriously wounded and he and some others managed to drag him back as they withdrew. ‘[We] laid him on the bottom of the trench,’ Lyon wrote. ‘His leg was in a fearful state, a machine-gun had got on to him, but he stood it wonderfully and a 10th man applied first aid. The stretcher-bearers were fearfully busy, and he had to lie there over two hours before it was possible to get him away.’¹⁸ The farmer from faraway King Island died on the hospital ship next day.

Once out of the trench, and seeing the futility of their task, Major Deeble and Lieutenant Higgins had sought some cover. Deeble found himself well out in front and without a mark on him:

My own line came under a most deadly hail of machine-gun, bomb, and rifle fire, and the men fell all around me. No man hesitated, yet I had none to carry further. I fell on my face, and, taking the cover of the nearest depression in the ground managed to get together, or rather, speak to about 8 or 10 men not yet shot. I determined to wait for the 3rd line and sweep on with them. [The] 2nd line got as far forward as the first, I must have been the only officer in the line except Lieutenant Higgins, whose few followers were some distance to my left.¹⁹

Lieutenant Andy Crawford had run forward until he was hit. He recalled:

I only got about fifteen or twenty yards. I could see the Turks two deep in their trench. I could see one soldier firing over another chap’s shoulder. A bullet hit me [in the hip] and spun me around. Bowled me over like a rabbit. I lay there and couldn’t move and another bullet went through the fleshy part of my back. Four or five blokes came out and pulled me back.²⁰

The last officer still left standing was Major McLaurin, who was in command on the left. He had led a counter-attack to drive the enemy out of these trenches only a few weeks before, shooting three Turks with his revolver. Now, leaving his trench, he had run forward about 25 metres, still partly protected by the small dip. Reaching the top of the rise, he saw that there was nobody left in front of him. In that same instant he noticed Lieutenant Leo Anderson, the young Duntroon officer, lying in a hole partly covered by some bushes; he had been mortally wounded. McLaurin threw himself down and set about trying to drag the young man back to safe ground. While doing this he was wounded in the face, a round or some shrapnel striking him across the bridge of his nose. A brave teenager, Leslie Lawry, who had joined the regiment as one of its trumpeters, took over and pulled the dying Anderson in.

Troopers Meldrum, Boyton and McConnan were among those who, after being hit, were able to get back to safety. Only from the few such survivors do we learn of what was happening to the unfortunate men trapped in front of the Turkish fire. Meldrum recalled:

We had not covered half the distance before we met a wall of lead from machine-guns, rifles and bombs. Our first line propped and dropped. By the time the trench was reached you could count the men on your fingers. We were about half-way by this time, and had lost heavily, so we pulled our line together, and rushed forward. I got about five yards when I felt a bullet go through my hat, and it knocked me out. I seemed to be there a terribly long time, but it could have only been a few seconds. I heard our chaps still cheering as they charged so I jumped up and went on again. I got about 10 yards then another bullet took a piece of skin off my right eye. I dropped down again, as there didn’t seem to be any of our chaps left.²¹

Walter McConnan made light of his injuries in a letter home:

My crack is really nothing only a graze on the back from a piece of red hot bomb or shrapnel. It is a bit sore but scratches do not count here and after all I was most lucky to get let down with it. I was out in the open getting along on my hands and knees at the time and when bowled over managed to roll into one of our saps to safety. While waiting about the dressing station I went about the stretchers helping where I could. I found young Sanderson of Benalla with a shattered leg. He was patient and brave. Australians can die I can tell you.²²

Trooper Vernon Boyton had seen the first line shot down in front of him. Despite his serious wounds he survived, but took no further active part in the war. He wrote to his sister:

Well, they were all mown down except one or two who staggered back wounded. Then our turn came, and we made a dash for it. We had to trample over the dead bodies of our first line. I got within about six yards of their trench when I seemed to be hit everywhere through my right leg, my right forearm, my right hand, the first finger of which was hanging off and blood pouring everywhere.²³

Once out of the trenches the men of the second line saw only a few of their comrades still struggling forward. The rest lay dead or wounded, or had scrambled for shelter in the shallow holes or in the slight dip in front of the long sap. Dozens of men were frightfully injured and were to lie out in front beyond help until death slowly overtook them. Others, thrashing about, making dashes for safety, or trying to crawl back, were hit repeatedly. The more fortunate hugged the ground while rounds passed only centimetres above them.