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Gallipoli Diary

Sunday 2/5/15

Sunday 2/5/15

Splendid weather
continues. Comparatively quiet night
and Turks could be heard digging trenches
Recovered Lieut. Hugo's body from
front of our trenches and buried him
with short service. Quiet day
but at 7 pm naval guns began page 46 a half hours bombardment of
enemys trenches preparatory to
Otago batt. making an advance
on our right. Canterbury was to
go forward on left when Otago
attained their object. At 8 pm
Otago moved out and we attempted
with much success to draw the
enemys fire in our direction. However
Otago was unsuccessful and
after making three successive
assaults in the dark & reaching
Turks trenches with a few men
they were forced to retire with
severe losses & entrenched only
about 50 yds from their starting point.
Canterbury therefore did not
proceed on the left. I consider
failure due to insufficient reconnaissance
& artillery preparation with covering
fire during advance. Owing to
darkness latter was impossible.

The rifle fire during the night
was [gap — reason: illegible]awful. I was standing in
the trenches all night from 7 pm
to 4 am with our Brigadier
who was superintending the operation
Capt. Morton went out with
See over
page verso of page 46 Foll'g morse signals are reported to be
in use by Turks: . – – . (UN) repeated
three times front to rear means “We are
ready to attack” do rear to front
“attack begins” – – . – (Q) “Go back”
– – – . (F) 3 times front to rear [unclear: Attack begins]
“Amm's needed” do rear to front “Amm's coming” page 47 Otago & is reported missing.

I cannot write of casualties &
daily movements as rumours are
always rampant & official
information is not to hand for
some days.