It was just seven minutes; four hundred and twenty seconds.
A blunder...But the word didn't seem enough as I stood amongst the shattered bodies of my mates in the trench; now loose piles of meat and bone slowly bloating in the sun.
I stood mute as the tortured moaning and screams of the injured still laying out in no-mans-land between the trenches reached my ears. Those men who I would never see again, not alive, whose families would be told had died gloriously doing their duty, lay out there slowly dying in agony.
There was nothing glorious about it; they had died in vain, the action a mere diversion for the British landing at Suvla Bay. They had fallen before withering rifle and machine gun fire, torn to shreds, bodies rent and destroyed - And those were the lucky ones.
Those moaning under the baking sun all day bleeding their life's blood into the Turkish dirt were not so fortunate but die they would nonetheless, most of them anyway, and they would lie rotting there, trodden upon as we attack again and repel the counter-attack that would come. I could be, and almost was, one of them.
Seven minutes could have made the difference, but history would record what had happened, and that was a massacre - But then, it was always likely to be. original im src
We were going over at 0430 after the naval and land bombardment ceased. Six hundred men of the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade, the 8th and 10th Regiments, of which I was in the 10th; a proud unit of mainly West Australians.
The plan was sheer bloody insanity - A bayonet attack over ground the size of four tennis courts at heavily defended trenches of Turks armed with machine guns and rifles. The attack was diversionary it's intention to take the enemies focus off a British beach landing and the New Zealanders flanking attack, that would occur simultaneously, on Baby 700, a strategic Turkish stronghold.
I was in the forth wave of 175 men commanded by Major Joe Scott. Like most I split my focus between the sky where shells screamed as they arced into the enemy positions exploding in a cacophony of high explosives and searing hot shrapnel and my watch; but thoughts drifted also to what might happen when I climbed over the trench-parapet and charged the enemy at a run also.
It was August 7th 1915, the day after I turned 19 years old. It was likely to be my last.
The sound of explosions seemed to fade away as I drifted and contemplated death and then...Silence.
I came instantly back to the moment and looked at my watch expecting to see 0430 but it wasn't; the watch read 0423 and I tapped at it thinking it had stopped.
The bombardment had ceased. Seven minutes early.
A ripple of murmuring spread down the line and I in turn whispered my confusion to Bluey, the rough and ready farmer from Margaret River with the shock of bright red hair. We expected the shelling to resume but minutes later, still nothing. We all looked confused, some hopeful and many worried.
The 30 minute bombardment was over after only twenty three minutes. Had the stunt been halted? Were the guns going to resume? Would we be going over still?
We knew what it meant, that seven minutes.
The enemy would emerge from their deep dugouts where they cowered during the shelling; they would set up and load their machine guns, line the trenches with men and rifles and wait for us to charge. It would be bloody slaughter - There was no way they would send us. They couldn't.
Minutes later I looked at my watch synchronised the night before, we all did...0430...And the shrill sound of several whistles rang out ahead on the frontline trench. I felt a chill foreboding. They were sending the charge.
It was 0430 and the whistles shrieked.
Along the 90 metre length of trench 175 men of the 8th Regiment were being hoisted over the edge of the parapet by those of the second wave below in the trench, or climbed the pegs and ladders set into the trench wall, and launched themselves at the machine gun fire which started at the sight of the first man. The enemy trench systems were not even 50 metres away but it might have been a million.
Bullets tore into the men and they fell backwards into the trench, or just dropped where they were hit, dead and dying. Some made it a few steps, even fewer a little further somehow being missed by over 30 machine guns and hundreds of rifles pouring fire into them; but all were cut down and then it was over...For the first wave at least. The action had lasted a few minutes.
I stood in place as the last shots went silent...And then the moaning and screaming started from the battlefield. I dropped my head but shuffled forward with the rest of my mates, a few steps closer to my turn.
The plan was simple.
The first wave of the 8th was to subdue the enemy trenches with bayonet and hand-hurled bomb [grenades], wave two of the 8th was to sweep up towards Baby 700 and the third wave of my own 10th Regiment would push further upwards to consolidate. The fourth wave, the one I was in, would carry up picks, shovels and barbed wire to entrench and fortify the new position some 200 metres forward up Baby 700. Simple.
There were six hundred men in all but after the first wave made it no more than a few paces before being destroyed it seemed an unlikely plan and unlikely that, should they send more men, it would be any more successful than the first action. Those seven minutes in which the Turk had to set up would cost us dearly.
Fucking British, I heard someone mutter and I had to agree. Where were the British Generals who laid this plan? Not in the vanguard that's for certain. It was sheer bloody murder and a few said so. But forward we shuffled, the moans of the dying a little louder.
The second wave, another 175 men of the 8th Regiment Australian Light Horse, were to go over after the first had gone twenty metres. Instead of the Turks being distracted by the New Zealanders attacking their flank that attack had faltered and ultimately failed leaving the defenders fully-focused and ready for the Light Horsemen.
Along the line of second-wave men there was shaking of hands, hugs and fond farewells; 'goodbye cobber, god bless.' Most had already used their knives or bayonets thrust into the side of the trench to hang their personal effect on; rings, watches, necklaces and notes home that they didn't want to get lost in the blood and dirt when they fell.
They clambered over the bloody corpses of their mates fallen to the floor of the trench, prepared and...The shrill whistles blew...Over they went.
I shuddered when I heard the whistles signal the jump-off for the second wave. Poor bastards, but then I was shuffling towards the front myself; more meat for the grinder.
The Turkish machine guns and rifles opened up and laid waste to the second wave in minutes. And I shuffled forward wondering why, but not halting for fear of letting my mates down.
The machine gun and rifle fire ceased, just minutes. Screaming and piteous moans reached my ears more clearly as now I was closer to the front; calls for god, mates or mothers, and tears came unbidden to my eyes. My mates, I thought, those rough and tough bastards I'd been through so much with...Dead and dying, and soon I'd likely join them.
Even as a tear fell I wiped it though, I'd not let my mates down, not on your bloody life. I pushed up and into the frontline trench behind the third wave who were ready to go.
Unbeknown to me at the time an attempt had been made to stop the third and fourth waves. Lieutenant Colonel Noel Brazier had rushed to brigade HQ to petition Brigadier General Hughes but unfortunately he had left for an outpost; only Major General John Macquarie Antill was there and he and Brazier hated each other but the petition was made anyway. The attack was murder, it can't go on.
Antill said push on!
I didn't know this of course, not as I stood there watching the third wave prepare to go over. I simply made ready whilst watching the men of the third wave step towards their jump-off points, shake hands and attempt to find the courage to hoist themselves into the withering fire they knew would come and their possible death.
It was 0445 when the whistles blew and the third wave was massacred on the killing-field above.
I heard later my two mates, brothers Gresley and Wilfred Harper, had actually made it to the edge of the enemy trench, further than anyone else, before being killed on the parapet. I don't know how many times in the years that followed I thought of them and said aloud, Jeez I'll miss those two chaps. I see their faces still, fifty years later.
That evening I also listened to stories of a few smart bastards who had found a hole for cover like the ten or so blokes with Lieutenant Hugo Throssell who sheltered in a fold of ground until nightfall; baking through the heat of day, but living seemed better than the alternative so they endured and made their way back under cover of darkness.
I moved up to the line.
I was going over with the rest of the fourth wave despite the plan being a total failure so far and there being no chance of success. Antill still refused to halt the attack. Push on.
The whistles blew but not before thirty or so dashed forward early so eager to get at the enemy were they. Crazy fuckers. Then I was climbing over the parapet into hell and the machine guns opened up.
[End]
This is a small piece based on true events. I've written it in the first person although I was not there obviously. The names I have used are historically correct though, the real life people.
Many Australian sons, brothers and husbands gave up their lives on that small piece of ground called The Nek, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, that day. Six hundred men went over the top against an unknown number of Turkish defenders who repelled with at least thirty machine guns and an unknown number of rifles; several hundred certainly.
It was sheer folly, a ridiculous diversion devised by British Generals who had no concept of the terrain and enemy strength; it was a tragic action repeated in several other places simultaneously in a concerted effort to capture Baby 700, a strategic point the Turks held, and to divert attention from a British beach Landing at Suvla Bay. Similar slaughter occurred at Lone Pine and the New Zealanders fared badly in the flanking assault on Baby 700 also. The British at Suvla? They landed without a shot fired but stayed on the beach drinking tea as they were too tired to move and it was hot. Fuckers.
In around twenty or so minutes 372 men of the Australian Light Horse were killed or wounded across an area the size of four tennis courts. After the action and across the day movement could be seen in no-mans-land where the dead and dying lay. As the sun reached its zenith and the heat reached maximum the movement became less and less as the dying succumbed to their wounds. Attempts were made to reach them but raking machine gun fire made it impossible so they died, and some managed to endure until after dark.
Some made it back, like the fictional person in my piece above, and the real-life Lieutenant Hugo Throssell and his badly injured brother Ric and companions...But they left something out there that day, their mates, and a part of themselves also. In later years those who charged the enemy that day at The Nek would speak with tears in their eyes, or spoke not at all, however if they spoke it was always of their mates and to wonder why they made it when their mates did not; their guilt at surviving causing many to struggle with life.
In war errors are made, just like in the battle at the Nek, Lone Pine and the other side of Baby 700 in the Gallipoli Campaign. It happens in all forms of war and people die. I'm not alone in wondering why that artillery barrage ceased seven minutes early, or in wondering what the outcome for those Australian Light Horse troopers charging the Turkish trenches that morning might have been had the full barrage been unleashed and the assault launched at the exact moment the last shell landed. Mission - success? Less casualties? We will never know, but certainly there's a chance the result would have been different.
What I'm left with is the thought of the silence when that barrage ceased early, no shelling, just those minutes ticking over and what those Light Horse Troopers must have been thinking and feeling knowing the enemy would regroup and be prepared for their charge across no-mans-land. What were they thinking and feeling...And what made them push forward and go over the top.
I'm going to die. It won't happen to me. I don't want to let my mates down. I want to kill the bastards. Well, historical accounts from those that were there reveal those thoughts and more but they went anyway. They obeyed ridiculous orders despite the timing blunder of the artillery and that seven minute countdown to hell.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind
Discord: galenkp#9209
If you're interested I have linked the final scene of the 1981 Australian movie Gallipoli starring Mel Gibson. It picks up after the 8th Regiment, the first two waves, have gone over at the Battle of The Nek. After the third wave, the men of the 10th Regiment went over and Mel Gibson, a runner, is sent to seek permission to cease the action, not send the fourth wave. It's only five minutes but punctuates this piece I wrote above reasonably well. It makes mention at the start of the British on Suvla also.
Final scene of the 1981 Australian film Gallipoli
