I know I'm in England but there are a few kiwi's and aussie's who post on here and today is significant in the history of these two great nations. As an Australian and former Australian soldier serving in the Royal Australian Signals Corp for 7 years this day holds some personal significance for me. I'd just like to share a few facts, well what I know to be facts I’m sure there could be many different recollections of the events, and some of my personal thoughts on the day. It's a bit of a read but please stick with it.
Gallipoli was the fire in which Australia was forged as a nation. On this day in 1915, the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp (ANZAC) forces landed in a cove on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The initial goal was to capture the highest point on the peninsula - Chunuk Bair, and place a gun here to control the shipping straits of The Dardanelle's (I went there in 2003 and swum in the Dardanelle's to experience the conditions that these guys fought under - it was freezing in the water!). This was the only access to the Black Sea from the Med and was of high strategic and tactical importance. Beyond this the campaign was to push on to Constantinople (Istanbul) and capture this city forcing Turkey out of the war.
Unfortunately the ANZAC's weren't supposed to land in this cove, they were supposed to land at Suvla Bay slightly further north. Suvla Bay offered a shallow approach, flat land to gain access to the peninsula and cover from the Turkish forces. That small cove, later to be named ANZAC cove, had a deep approach, very steep land meeting the water and thoroughly entrenched Turkish forces and machine gun emplacements. The ANZAC forces were cut to ribbons under this fire on the day of the landing. When I visited ANZAC cove I went down to the waters edge and looked up at the task that faced the ANZAC's in 1915. There is a road there now along the beach to the memorial and you can see where the engineer's cut into the earth to provide some flat ground for the road and how if this wasn’t there the ground would be extremely steep. The equipment these soldiers carried and the uniforms they wore were quite heavy and held water. Some soldiers getting out of the boats never made it to the beach but sank straight to the bottom under the weight of their equipment etc and drowned. Remember that they thought they were landing at Suvla Bay and were certainly not expecting such stiff Turkish opposition. Also, they were very young.
When the call to arms came in Australia many farmhands volunteered and lied about their ages, there were fresh eyed teenagers who wanted some adventure and who had only heard of such far off foreign lands in stories and newspapers. There was a fresh optimism in Australia after we had finally formed as a nation and this would be the first time we would fight as a nation. Pervious soldiers sent to conflicts represented their individual states as we had not federated yet.
The ANZAC’s are best remembered in that campaign for a few significant battles at Lone Pine, The Nek and Chunuk Bair. At Chunuk Bair the kiwi’s climbed the western face in the early hours of the morning under the cover of darkness. They carried enough supplies to survive on top of Chunuk Bair for 48 hours I think, it was quite a lot of kit – especially ammunition. The western face is very steep and this climb would have been hell in the day let alone while it was dark. I climbed this face myself while I was there and I had to cling onto tufts of grass etc to pull myself up. The kiwi soldiers did that with at least 30kg’s each of equipment and had to be ready to fight when they got there. Bloody hard work. Not only were the kiwi’s prepared well but they took Chunuk Bair in an offensive and held the post. They kept the Turks at bay until reinforcements arrived in the name of English soldiers who had just landed at Suvla Bay. This was a period of approx 48 hours. The kiwi’s learned that when they reach the bottom of Chunuk Bair, proud to have captured Chunuk Bair and held it before handing it over, that the Turks had pushed the English off Chunuk Bair and it was lost to the enemy within a few hours of the handover. They were devastated and so were the Australians.
Why were the Aussies devastated? The Aussie’s had launched two diversionary attacks at The Nek and Lone Pine. This was to provide cover for the English landing at Suvla Bay and for the kiwi’s climbing the western face of Chunuk Bair. The Nek is a land feature known as a saddle where two high points of land are joined by a ridge. The Nek is the ridge between to high points and was no wider than 80 odd metres. I walked from edge to edge and I had a good look/walk around here to see how the round lay. The Turks were well entrenched here and militarily this was a very easy piece of land to hold. The approach was completely exposed with no cover from fire. The Australians charged the Turkish gun emplacements after the local commander had asked for permission to cease the charge and was denied. He knew This, in my opinion, was nothing short of organised murder as wave after wave of Australians had their nip of rum and climbed out of the trenches and rushed the Turkish machine gun emplacements to be slaughtered within metres of the trench they just left. Not a single soldier made it to the Turks. What a waste.
A brisk walk from The Nek is the battlefield of Lone Pine. Another diversionary attack was launched here. It was of such significant force and ferocity that the Turks thought the Australians attacking Lone Pine were part of a new front and rushed reinforcements in to repel the attack. The ground here was reasonably flat and the trenches of the allied forces and the Turks were quite close, just out of grenade reach. I had a good walk around here as it’s still a warren of trenches and you can see that the area the battle took place in was approximately the space of two tennis courts. In this small area of land, over the 48 hours that the kiwi’s held Chunuk Bair thousands of Australians were killed – the most in any single battle during this campaign. It was so bad that bodies were piled 3 and 4 deep and after it the Turkish and Australian troops called a ceasefire and walked amongst each other, helping each other collect the dead bodies. They traded cigarettes and rum etc and bonded. A deep mutual respect still exists today between the ANZAC’s and the Turks. This also happened at Chunuk Bair with the kiwi’s and the Turks. Later, we even played soccer with them.
The campaign continued until the end of 1915 when the Allied forces withdrew, the most successful operation of the campaign with water traps attached to triggers on rifles firing off as the soldiers withdrew. The Turks didn’t even know they’d left.
Here are the numbers gathered from -
http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-gallipoli.html :
• Australia: 18.500 wounded and missing - 7,594 killed.
• New Zealand : 5,150 wounded and missing - 2,431 killed.
• British Empire (excl. Anzac) : 198,000 wounded and missing - 22,000 killed.
• France : 23,000 wounded and missing - 27,000 killed.
• Ottoman Empire (Turkey) : 109,042 wounded and missing - 57,084 killed.
• Furthermore 1.700 Indians died in Gallipoli, plus an unknown number of Germans, Newfoundlanders and Senegalese.
The majority of British soldiers that were killed were killed further down the peninsula where The Dardanelle's run into the sea.
After the extremely successful withdrawal the ANZAC’s were rewarded for their service by being shipped straight to the Western Front to fight without being given a break. In those days the English commanders were impressed by the tenacity and ferocity of the ANZAC’s and wanted that impact on the Western Front.
ANZAC day is commemorated by a dawn service were a number of things are done, but two I’d like to mention are The Ode and The Last Post. The Ode is the 4th stanza of a poem called ‘For The Fallen’ written by poet Laurence Binyon.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.” And The Last Post is played. I’ve got the following from wikipedia:
“The Last Post is a bugle call used at military funerals and ceremonies commemorating those who have fallen in war.
The Last Post was originally a bugle call used in British Army camps to signal the end of the day. The name derives from the practice of inspecting all the sentry posts around such a camp at the end of the day, and playing a bugle call at each of them. The "last post" was thus the last point of this inspection, and the bugle call signalling that this post had been inspected marked the end of the military day. This custom dates from at least the 17th century, and originated with British troops stationed in the Netherlands, where it drew on an older Dutch custom, called Taptoe. The Taptoe was also used to signal the end of the day, but has more prosaic origin. Taptoe originated signaling the moment that beer barrels had to be shut, hence that the day had ended. It comes from the Dutch phrase Doe den tap toe, meaning "Turn the tap off".”
I haven’t done it yet but I think The Last Post can be downloaded here -->
http://www.dva.gov.au/commem/commac/...s/LastPost.mp3 Lest we forget.
25-Apr-2006, 11:26 
domski
RD
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