The Artillery in Action.

Casualties during the day had been extremely heavy, and the troops were almost exhausted with their terrible and continuous struggles. The enemy, too, had suffered severe losses, but he had been constantly reinforced, and threatened at any moment to sweep the troops of the Army Corps from their precarious hold on the precipitous and hard-won ridges. The night brought no relief, and the anxiety was so great that a conference was held at which the possibility of a withdrawal was discussed; on the Artillery transports orders were received to stand by the boats in case a re-embarkation should be ordered. But the idea of withdrawal was peremptorily dismissed by the Commander-in-chief; it was decided that the page 27force must hold on; and orders were issued for the hastening of the disembarkation of more troops, including the 4th (How.) Battery and more 18prs. During the night the guns of the 4th Battery were unloaded from the Australind on to barges. The Left Section of the Battery landed at 6.30 a.m. on the 26th April, and immediately went into action at the foot of Howitzer Gully, the guns being pulled along the beach by two teams of Australian horses which had been brought ashore the previous afternoon. The first round, fired at ten minutes to seven, was sent into the "blue" at a range of three thousand yards, so that the infantry might know without delay that their artillery had commenced to arrive, and an involuntary cheer went up from the hillside at the welcome sound. It was music to the ears of the battle-weary men in the line Within a few minutes of firing its first round the section had been linked up with an observing station on Plugge's Plateau, and was busy engaging targets with an unvarying accuracy that certainly did not suggest that the gunners were having their first practice with live shell. Soon after coming into action this section was engaged by hostile guns firing from Gaba Tepe, but they were silenced by the fire of the warships. The remaining two guns of the Battery were landed about noon, and occupied positions which had been prepared overnight to the north of Ari Burnu Point. The first target was the Fisherman's Hut, from which enemy snipers had done a good deal of execution, and a direct hit was registered with the third round. These two guns remained in action on Ari Burnu during the whole period of the campaign, being moved only when the orders came for evacuation.

By the close of the second day a line had been established with some continuity; trenches were gradually being dug and strengthened, and ammunition, stores and water were being got up to the line by the carrying parties, who laboured up the gullies and precipitous slopes oblivious of the enemy shrapnel, or the snipers who took toll of their numbers from the scrub-covered tops. On the beach a pier had been improvised from some barges which had been stranded on the shingle, which on subsequent days was strengthened with planking and stout beams, and did service until the more page 28substantial Watson's Pier was erected. On this narrow shelving strip of shingle everything was landed—mules, men and guns, and stores of every description, and here grew up great square stacks of bully beef and biscuits, the staple diet of the soldier at Anzac. The transport mules were picketed in lines on the beach until the guns from either flank commenced to make the area so unhealthy that they took refuge up the deep, narrow gullies which ran up between the ridges.

Late in the afternoon of April 26th arrangements were made to disembark the 2nd Battery, but it was the early morning of the 27th before the guns were finally got ashore. Two big barges went alongside the Surada about dusk, and into each was loaded a section of guns and limbers, and a full complement of ammunition. About 9 p.m. a trawler took charge of the two barges and towed them close in shore, where the Battery was informed that it could not land that night. The gunners spent a cheerless night lying off-shore in the barges, listening to the patter of the stray bullets in the water all round them. At dawn the trawler took them to within a hundred yards of the shore, near Hell Spit, the gunners laboriously manœuvring the unwieldy barges over the remaining distance. As they were landed the guns and vehicles were drawn up on the beach and concealed as far as possible; but the disembarkation had hardly been completed when the enemy commenced to shell the beach with shrapnel. The Battery did not go into action at once, but the officers spent the day endeavouring to find a position for the guns which would be accessible besides being suitable in other respects. Everywhere they were faced with sheer cliffs or apparently impossible slopes; but it was recognised that the guns would have to be dragged up a track which must be prepared without delay. There was no alternative; as the flat trajectory guns could not shoot over the cliffs they must be got up on top of them. In the meantime the two guns of the Right Section were manhandled up to a temporary position on the shoulder of the ridge above Ari Burnu. The position afforded only a limited field of fire to the north-east; but the guns did some very effective shooting on this zone.

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There was an exciting moment cm the crowded beach during the afternoon of the 28th, when observers, watching through a telescope the busy movements of the Turks on the distant point of Nibrunesi, reported that a heavy gun was being dragged into position. A gun firing from Nibrunesi Point could enfilade the beach, and play terrible havoc on the crowded slopes sheltered by Plugge's Plateau and the shoulders running down to the sea. The left section of the Howitzer Battery opened fire, but failed to reach the Point, and beach parties working with feverish energy to get the ammunition from the beach to the shelter of Howitzer Gully, were filled with anxious apprehension. Messages had been sent out to the Navy, however, and a cruiser away on the left opened fire on the Point, and relieved the situation. A party of New Zealand Infantry, which made a successful landing on Nibrunesi Point at dawn on May 2nd, destroyed an observation post as well as capturing a number of prisoners, and reported the existence of a prepared gun position, but no gun.

The Left Section of the 2nd Battery, which had been in reserve on the beach, got a sudden call into action some time after midnight on the 28th. Infantry patrols had reported that the enemy was moving along the flat to the north of the Cove, evidently with the idea of attacking the somewhat exposed left flank. All spare men and beach parties stood to arms, a defensive line was occupied, and the gunners dragged their two guns through the heavy sand to a position near the left section of the 4th Battery. Supplies of ammunition were brought up, and the guns stood ready for action, but the threatened attack was abandoned. Once again the Navy had come to the rescue, destroyers standing in and throwing a concentrated beam across the flat from their searchlights. On this brightly illumined path the Turk very wisely refused to show himself. As the two guns were in full view of the enemy by day, they were removed with the first flush of dawn.

A position had now been found for the 2nd Battery on the top of Plugge's Plateau, but the question of how the guns were to be got up had yet to be settled. However, a working party of infantry, some hundreds strong, was set to work to makepage 30a road up Maclagan's Ridge, and with such energy did they apply themselves to their task that the track was sufficiently prepared by evening to permit of the passage of the guns. Horses could not be employed on those sheer slopes, and accordingly, with long ropes and one hundred lusty men heaving in unison the guns were literally lifted up on to the plateau. Ten days later the Right Section was brought up from Ari Burnu, and there the Battery remained until shortly after the opening of the big August attack. The position was eminently one which in ordinary times would have been considered "impossible"; but so would most positions at Anzac. But to the bold imagination and indomitable spirit of the Australasians who took and held for so long that narrow sweep of barren, broken country, nothing appeared impossible. This position looked straight across to the Turkish trenches at Quinn's Post, and the Turks, on their part, were able to look almost down the muzzles of the guns.

Plugge's Plateau was an almost level piece of ground a few acres in extent which crowned the slopes of Anzac Cove. Standing on the Plateau and looking east across Monash Gully the forward trenches at Quinn's Post were in full view; while lower down were the communication trenches with which the beaver-like industry of sapper and infantryman had honeycombed the face of the cliff. Above these forward trenches, almost in the same line of sight with them, and a bare twenty yards further on, was the Turkish front line. The 2nd Battery watched this point, the most vulnerable in the whole system, and the most vital. It could see and shoot at scarcely any other; but though its arc of fire was so limited, the shooting the guns could do within this arc was so effective and of such value as to make the position one of great importance. Careful ranging and most accurate fuze-setting alone rendered it possible for the guns to engage the enemy twenty yards beyond their own line at a range of between nine hundred and a thousand yards. The deadly effect of this direct fire can be imagined; and after one or two experiences the enemy was little disposed to leave his trenches in the face of it.

Three guns of the 1st Battery arrived on the beach on the afternoon of April 30th, and were followed by the remaining page 31gun at 6 a.m. on May 1st. A somewhat exposed position on the left flank had been selected and partly prepared for one section, and despite the risks, an attempt was made to occupy it during daylight. The two guns, drawn by six-horse teams, had not proceeded far north of Ari Burnu Point when the leading team came under heavy rifle fire. As the team could not turn in the heavy sand, the horses were unhooked, and the attempt to get the guns into position was postponed till nightfall. This position, which had been occupied with a view rather to moral than material effect, afforded only a restricted field of fire, and four or five days later the two guns were withdrawn to the beach at the Cove, where the Battery remained in reserve until May 17th. From that date until the evacuation the Battery occupied what was without doubt one of the best gun-positions, from a shooting point of view, in the whole of the Anzac area, commanding as it did a field of fire which practically extended from the sea on the right to the sea on the left. This position was on Russell's Top, the apparently insurmountable summit of Walker's Ridge, the guns being got there only by dint of the same initial labour and great exertions that had been necessary to place the 2nd Battery on the summit of Plugge's Plateau. Engineers and infantry working parties made a track up Walker's Ridge, and a big team of infantrymen, whose enthusiasm made them willing volunteers, pulled the guns up the long, dragging way from the beach to the top. As the 2nd Battery looked directly into Quran's, so from the 1st Battery gun-pits the enemy works at Lone Pine and Johnston's Jolly lay in full view, at a range of from eight hundred to one thousand yards. These were the only field guns which could bear on these two places in the line, this fact alone making the position one of tremendous value.

It will readily be seen that in addition to possessing a preponderance in guns, and more plentiful supplies of ammunition, the enemy enjoyed every advantage of position and observation. In the Anzac area, circumscribed and altogether unsuitable for the use of field guns, batteries were obliged for the most part to occupy positions that might almost be described page 32as inaccessible, and were plainly exposed to the enemy's view, or altogether nullify the value of their support to the infantry. There were no alternative positions, and even if there had been, the labour involved in moving the guns in such country would have rendered them of little use. Being thus plainly exposed to the enemy's view, there was no recourse for the batteries but to endeavour to protect their positions, and particularly their personnel, by digging trenches and constructing protective earthworks. The 1st Battery position in front of the Sphinx was fairly well protected on the left by the lie of the ground, which sloped up to the cliff-edge. The Turkish guns firing from Anafarta seldom did any damage, most of the shells striking the face of the cliff, or going right over. The 2nd Battery on Plugge's Plateau, was even more exposed to view, but the position was made very strong despite the almost total lack of materials. Sandbags were to be had in small quantities, but timber was unprocurable—through ordinary channels of supply, at any rate. This lack of material made it impossible to construct strong overhead cover on the gun-pits; but communication trenches were dug between the guns, approaches were prepared, and the accommodation for the detachments was much improved. This work was done as opportunity offered; much of it during the quiet days at the end of May, and in June. The gunners lived beside their pieces in small burrow-like dug-outs or excavations, which were often very comfortable and always clean, and models of neatness in the arrangement of their few personal belongings. Observing officers, with their telephonists, lived at the observing stations in or near the front line while on duty. They were usually relieved at intervals of a week, or thereabouts; but during those periods when there was a shortage of officers, chiefly due to dysentery and similar complaints, these hours of duty extended over very lengthy periods. An observation station for the direction of naval fire was also constantly maintained, and the data and information as to targets which were supplied to the vessels of the fleet, considerably increased the value of their fire. All messages were sent to a naval wireless station established in the Cove, and thence they were transmitted to the fleet.

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At the commencement of the campaign ammunition had all to be taken up to the guns by hand, but when the Corps settled down, and such things became better organised, the employment of transport mules relieved the gunners of a heavy burden. It was not a long carry to the howitzers; but few of the gunners will forget the dragging climb up to Plugge's Plateau, or to the 1st Battery's position on Walker's Ridge. Most of the ammunition for the 1st Battery was taken up by pack mules on the road constructed for the guns, and a fair measure of success attended a scheme for hauling it up the cliffside by a rope let down on the right of the Sphinx.

The Turk long cherished the illusion that it was possible by sheer weight of numbers to fling back into the sea the adventurous soldiery who had wrested this narrow footing on his coast, but the absolute failure of all his desperate attempts in the closing days of April must have gone some way towards dispelling it. During most of this time the 4th Battery was the only field battery supporting the Division, and the value of its support to the wearied infantry is almost beyond estimation. The only limit to its activities was the ammunition supply, which had to be husbanded with the most jealous care. For two hours, at one of the most critical periods, the guns were entirely without ammunition. This was on April 27th, and difficulty was at first experienced in getting fresh supplies sent ashore, but at last some arrived from the Australind, and the guns were able to resume shooting.

By the end of April the line had been reorganized by extricating troops which had become mixed with ether units in the confusion of the early fighting, preparations following for an attack on May 2nd, with the object of improving the line by capturing a commanding knoll between Quinn's Post and Walker's Ridge. The attack, which was made at night over unfamiliar, broken country, was not successful. It was preceded by a bombardment by the field guns that were in action, and the guns of the Navy; but owing to the conditions it could not be directly supported by artillery fire. The attacking troops suffered heavy losses from machine-gun and rifle fire during the night, and when the dawn came found their positions so exposed as to be absolutely untenable.