Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1915-05-07
TROOP LANDING
IS ACCOMPLISHED
WITH DIFFICULTY
Australians and New Zealand
erS DiSembark on GaIIipoIi
Peninsula Under Terrible
Fire From Enemy

10y noRmse JoussAl SPECIAL leAeeo wiRal
London. May (2:i5 II. MIA
British press representative with the
forces in the Dardanelles sends a long
and interesting account of the landing
of the Australians and New Zealand
ers on the Gallipoli peninsula, north
of Gaba Tepeh, at daylight of April
les
THE niFht before" the account
says, the entire fleet of warships
and transports left their rendezvous.
the crews of the warships cheering
the soldiers on to victory while the
bands played them out with an end
less variety of popular airs, The ar
rangement was that the Twenty-ninth
division should disembark near Sed-
| dul Bahr protected both from the
Gulf Of Saros and the Dardanelles by
the fire of the warships, the Austral-
lans and New Zealanders north of
Gaba Tepeh and a naval division to
make demonstration further north.
The splendid organization made il
possible To carry out the program
without confusion or accident.
After short service by the cap
tains the ships parted company and
made for their landing places. At
dusk all lights were extinguished and
the troops retired for rest before the
ordeal of dawn. II was n beautiful
night, III mp by n very bright half
moon. The sea was absolutely calm.
Early in the morning the men
were aroused from their slumbers and
served with hot meal. At 2.05
o o'clock in the morning the order was
given TO disembark. The boats, which
were manned by bluejackets and COM
manded by young midshipmen, slowly
were towed to the beach by pinnaces.
THE first authorized news We re-
ceived aboard the ships regarding the
landing came with the return of our
boats. The steam pinnace came
alongside with two recumbent forms
on her deck ard small figure, pale
but cheerful waving his hand. They
were one of our mdshlpmen just six
teen years old who was shot through
the stomach. but regarded his injury
more as a fitting contamination to a
glorious holiday ashore than wound,
and the chief stoker and petty Off
GER
All three were wounded by the first
burst of musketry, which caused
many casualties in the boats Just as
they reached the beach. From them
we learned that all the lows had al
most reached the beach when party
of Turks, entrenched almost on the
shore, opened up a terrible fusillade
from their rifles and also from a
maxim.
FORTUNATELY most of the bullets
went high, but nevertheless many
men were hit as they sat huddled
together, forty or fifty in a boat.
1.-The Australian volunteers waited
neither for orders nor for the boats
to reach the beach, but springing out
into the sea, they waded ashore ana
forming some sort of a rough line,
rushed straight on toward the flashes
of the enemy rifles.
"Their magazines had not even
been charged, but they just went in
with cold steel. And ] believe ! am
right in saying that the first Ottoman
Turk since the last crusade, received
an Anglo-Saxon bayonet in him at
6 minutes after o'clock on the
morning of April %. 1t was over in a
minute. The Turks in their first
trench were bayoneted or ran away
and their maxim gun was captured.
"Then the Australians found them
selves facing an almost perpendicular
cliff of loose sandstone with thick
shrubbery and somewhere half way
up the enemy had second trench,
strongly held, from which they pour
ed a terrific fire on the troops be-
low and the boats putting back to
the destroyers for second landing
party
"The colonials stopped few mo-
ments to pull themselves together
and get rid of their packs and then
charged with their magazines.
Then this race of athletes pro-
ceeded to scale cliffs without re-
spending to the enemy's fire. And in
less than a quarter of an hour the
Turks were out of their second posi-
ton either bayonetted or in full re-
treat
'In the early part Of the day very
heavy casualties were suffered in the
boats which conveyed the troops from
the destroyers, tugs and transports to
the beach. AS soon as ii became
light the enemy's sharpshooters con-
centratedA their fire on the boats when
they got near in. The landing con-
tinued throughout the day under this
fire. which could not be checked.
THE Australians finally established
themselves on a ridge and advanced
Eorthward, and throughout the day
confused fighting took place, The ships
assisting the troops with the fire from
their guns. The Turks only had a
comparatively weak force actually
holding the beach. They seemed to
have relied on the difficult nature of
the ground and their scattered snip
ing to delay the advance until, they
had brought up reinforcements from
the interior.
Some of the Australians who pushed
inland counter attacked and were al
most outflanked by these oncoming
reserves and had to fall back after
suffering very heavy casualties
1T was then the turn Of the Turks
to counter-attaek and this they con-
unued to do throughout the afternoon
but the Australians never yielded a
foot of ground on the main ridge and
reinforcements were continually pour
ed M from the beach.
"As soon as the light became good,
the Turks enfiladed the beach with
field guns. This shrapnel fire was in
cessant and deadly. The Turkish guns,
however, finally We're put out of ac-
ton by the ships.
THE Turks brought up reinforce
ments and the pressure on the colonials
became greater but they held on in
face of the difficulties, which includ-
ed the landing of water, ammunition
and supplies on the narrow beach and
carrying them up the bluffs, several
hundred feet high, TO the firing line,
while the troops were exposed to an
inceSSanf shraDneI fire