page 75

Saturday May 29/15

Fine morning. About 3 am in
trenches in our front we ignited a
mine placed in head of a sap made
towards the Turkish trenches where they
are very close to ours. It blew up
some of enemys line but also ignited
a mine they had arranged for us. They
must have had a tunnel which actually
passed our own & their explosion blew
in some of our trench burying several
men at Quinn's Post. Then the Turks
charged our trenches about 100 gaining
a footing. The success was very short
lived for the Australians holding this
line counter attacked, took 30
prisoners and none of the rest of
Turks got back. We followed up &
occupied a piece of enemys trench &
are holding on. 108 dead Turks
lie within our lines so there must
be many more dead & wounded within
their own. We had 70 killed
and about 160 wounded. About
the same time as this on another section
a party of CYC men rushed out and
succeeded in filling in a partly dug
trench of enemy's close to our own page 76 with loss of only 1 killed 4 wounded.
The battle lasted from 3 am until
about 9 am & after that the day
was quiet (comparatively speaking
always) except that we pounded
their hostile trenches with artillery.

Major Bruce a very capable Indian
Mountain Battery commander who
has done splendid work was
killed today by machine gun fire
being directed on a communication
trench he was passing through.
At the same time 1 Canterbury man
was killed & several wounded.

I today, received notice of
promotion to Major in Command
(17th) Ruahine Coy vice Major E H
Saunders, (severely wounded) and take
over my charge tomorrow. I
will have fairly difficult work for
a while as my officers are all
new, 3 reinforcements & 1 new promotion
I am then short of a 2nd in command
for present & Lt. Lee (slightly wounded)

Besides this practically all original
N C O's are casualties.

I have been mentioned in regimental page 77 records for some little act of
gallantry at WALKER'S RIDGE on
April 27th.