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Gallipoli Diary

Saturday June 5-15 Courtenay's Post

page 82

Saturday June 5-15 Courtenay's Post

At 11 pm last evening a sortie was
made under cover of darkness, by small
parties from our Section (Quinns' Post) with
idea of demolishing with explosives the
Turkish trench only 20 yards in our front.

At same time small party also went
out in night with designs on a machine
gun emplacement on our right. What
success attended these efforts is not yet
known but they began a heavy engagement
which was kept up along whole front
from 11 pm till day break with great
[unclear: vigour] Daylight again brought heavy
shelling & continuance of action which
is still in progress (10 am). The uproar
of battle is awful & during darkness
rather weird to see flashes of artillery,
the trail of the projectile as the fuse
sparkles in the dark, the heavy trench
mortar & the bombs & grenades, always
accompanied by lines of flame from
rifles & machine guns and above all
the incessant din of battle. We are
well used to all this now & the
noise has no terrors except to the
ear drums & it sometimes keeps us
awake page 83 when we are supposed to be having
our spell of rest from the firing line.

It appears that the sortie from Quinn's
Post by Canterbury men was successful.
They routed the enemy from their front trench
& captured 30 prisoners: However they could
not hold the trench taken as the Turks
next line was so close they could throw
hand grenades & bombs onto our men
as if throwing stones. We therefore
destroyed the position as far as possible
& vacated it.