The New Zealanders at Gallipoli
A Sortie from Quinn's Post
A Sortie from Quinn's Post.
Lying along the flank of the Turkish communications, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was a constant thorn in the side of the enemy troops journeying to reinforce the Ottoman army in the Krithia zone. The enemy kept a large general reserve with which he could reinforce his troops at either Krithia or Anzac. When the British attacked on the southern sector it was the duty of the Anzac troops to simulate an attack in force, so preventing Turkish reinforcements being sent from opposite Anzac to the south, and by making frequent sallies causing the Turkish commander to become uncertain in his mind as to the real attack. But always, in the first few months, Anzac was “playing second fiddle to Helles.”
[Lent by Sergt. P. Tite, N.Z.E.
A Scene in Monash Gully.
As the Turkish snipers at the head of Monash Gully could enfilade stretches of the road, snadbag traverses were built at the most dangerous points.
At first it was the custom to capture the first-line trench and to endeavour to keep it. In practice this was rarely successful. The front line of a trench system is generally lightly held; a surprise attack by determined troops can almost rely on being successful if the element of surprise is availed of. But to take a trench is one thing; to hold it another. Remember that the rest of the front line is still held by the enemy, who, working from traverse to traverse, can bomb down it. The second and third lines are also intact, with good communication trenches leading from them to the broken firing line. Bombers can also work down these communication trenches; ammunition, food and water, and (most important of all) hand-grenades, can arrive in unlimited numbers and in comparative safety. All of these things required by the attackers lodged in the enemy's trenches must come over the bullet-swept, shrapnel-torn surface of No Man's Land. By the end of a day, unless reasonable communications can be provided, the troops who so easily captured the hotlycontested position find that they must choose between annihilation or retreat. So it was raiding grew up. This appealed more to the primitive instincts of man—the sudden dash into the enemy, the attempt to achieve the maximum amount of damage in the minimum time, and to get to the home trench again before the enemy reinforcements could arrive. This method was particularly valuable when it was considered necessary to destroy the entrances to enemy galleries, to interfere with the progress of enemy saps, and to obtain prisoners for identification by the Intelligence Department.
The sortie from Quinn's Post on June 4 was a typical example of the early method. If ever an attack was organized to succeed this one was. Eager volunteers from the Auckland and Canterbury Battalions were selected to carry out the work, and at 11 p.m. a heavy artillery fire was to be directed on the surrounding communication trenches. An assaulting party of sixty men was to dash across the thirty yards of No Man's Land, take the opposing trench and transpose the page 175 Turkish parapet. Two working parties were detailed to follow the first line. These men carried filled sandbags with which to build a loopholed traverse at each end of the captured trench; other parties were to commence two communication trenches from the new work to the old. The 4th Australian Infantry Brigade was held in reserve.
The Bomb-proof Shelters at Quinn's Post.
The hillsides were so steep that a sufficient number of men could not be accommodated near the front line. Round cricket-ball hand grenades would bound downhill and annoy the troops, so these bomb-proofs were built. The high ground on the left of the picture is Pope's Hill.
Eventually Quinn's became the stronghold of the line. This was not accomplished in a day or without enormous labour. But, inspired by their officers—particularly the new commander of the post, Lieut.-Colonel Malone, of the Wellingtons—the men of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the New Zealand Engineers made Quinn's Post comparatively safe. Iron loopholes were put in, bombing pits constructed, and wonderful bomb-proof shelters built in terraces on the hillside. It was a tremendous work. Because of the pitiless heat and the incessant sniping, the troops watched and waited during the day; but as soon as it was dark the working parties, on their backs, carried the sandbags, timber, iron, ammunition, hand-grenades, water and food, up that shrapnelswept Valley of Death in order that Quinn's Post might be safe.