JOURNEY AND LANDING
Albert Facey,
“We were scared stiff – I know I was – but keyed up and eager to be on our way. We thought we would tear right through the Turks and keep going to Constantinople. Troops were taken off both sides of the ship onto destroyers. My platoon and other D Company men were on the same destroyers. All went well until we were making the charge into rowing boats.
Suddenly all hell broke loose: heavy shelling and shrapnel fire commenced. Bullets were thumping into us in the rowing boat. Men were being hit and killed all around me.
When we were cut loose to make our way to the shore was the worst period. I was terribly frightened. The boat touched bottom some thirty yards from the shore so we had to jump out and wade into the beach. The water in some places was up to my shoulders. The Turks had machine guns sweeping the strip of the beach where we landed – there were many dead already when we got there. Bodies of men who had reached the beach ahead of us were lying all along the beach and wounded men were screaming for help. We couldn’t stop for them – The Turkish fire was terrible and mowing into us. The order to line up on the beach was forgotten. We all ran for our lives over the strip of beach and got into the scrub and bush. We used our trenching tools to dig mounds of earth and sheltered from the firing until daylight.”
Facey, A. B. A Fortunate Life. New York: Viking, 1984.
“We were scared stiff – I know I was – but keyed up and eager to be on our way. We thought we would tear right through the Turks and keep going to Constantinople. Troops were taken off both sides of the ship onto destroyers. My platoon and other D Company men were on the same destroyers. All went well until we were making the charge into rowing boats.
Suddenly all hell broke loose: heavy shelling and shrapnel fire commenced. Bullets were thumping into us in the rowing boat. Men were being hit and killed all around me.
When we were cut loose to make our way to the shore was the worst period. I was terribly frightened. The boat touched bottom some thirty yards from the shore so we had to jump out and wade into the beach. The water in some places was up to my shoulders. The Turks had machine guns sweeping the strip of the beach where we landed – there were many dead already when we got there. Bodies of men who had reached the beach ahead of us were lying all along the beach and wounded men were screaming for help. We couldn’t stop for them – The Turkish fire was terrible and mowing into us. The order to line up on the beach was forgotten. We all ran for our lives over the strip of beach and got into the scrub and bush. We used our trenching tools to dig mounds of earth and sheltered from the firing until daylight.”
Facey, A. B. A Fortunate Life. New York: Viking, 1984.
Diary entry of an anonymous soldier
“Arrived with the rest of the fleet. It was pitch black…everyone is in a state of eager excitement. Transport boats are lowered, all men are lined up on deck and the orders issued….At 3:10am countless numbers of small craft push off shore…the whole side of the mountain seems to be sending forth tongues of flame and bullets rain upon us – seven in our boat are killed and God knows how many in the others. Fifty yards from sand and to wade ashore with the feeling that you are one of the first to put foot on Turkish soil…silent forms lay scattered on the beach everywhere: some gone to their last resting place: some writing in their last agonies; others with their life blood oozing out.”
Recorded in Sadler, R. K., and T. A. S. Hayllar. Gallipoli and Beyond: Australia at War 1914-18. South Yarra: Macmillan Education Australia, 2008, p48.
Image: Landing on 25 April 1915. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/P00229.001
“Arrived with the rest of the fleet. It was pitch black…everyone is in a state of eager excitement. Transport boats are lowered, all men are lined up on deck and the orders issued….At 3:10am countless numbers of small craft push off shore…the whole side of the mountain seems to be sending forth tongues of flame and bullets rain upon us – seven in our boat are killed and God knows how many in the others. Fifty yards from sand and to wade ashore with the feeling that you are one of the first to put foot on Turkish soil…silent forms lay scattered on the beach everywhere: some gone to their last resting place: some writing in their last agonies; others with their life blood oozing out.”
Recorded in Sadler, R. K., and T. A. S. Hayllar. Gallipoli and Beyond: Australia at War 1914-18. South Yarra: Macmillan Education Australia, 2008, p48.
Image: Landing on 25 April 1915. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/P00229.001
Private Roy Denning, 1st Field Company Engineers, AIF
“In the early hours of the morning of the 26th April 1915 I heard the officers going along amongst the men, saying ‘stick to it lads, don’t go to sleep’ and the cheerful reply would be ‘No sir, we wont go to sleep’, and my heart swelled with admiration. I knew what the ordeal of the strenuous day before had been, and knew what pluck and determination was necessary to keep awake and alert throughout the long weary hours of the night, therefore I thought I was justified in being proud of being Australian…give me Australians as comrades and I will go anywhere duty calls.”
Reid, Richard. Gallipoli 1915. Sydney: ABC for the Australian Broadcasting, 2002, p33
“In the early hours of the morning of the 26th April 1915 I heard the officers going along amongst the men, saying ‘stick to it lads, don’t go to sleep’ and the cheerful reply would be ‘No sir, we wont go to sleep’, and my heart swelled with admiration. I knew what the ordeal of the strenuous day before had been, and knew what pluck and determination was necessary to keep awake and alert throughout the long weary hours of the night, therefore I thought I was justified in being proud of being Australian…give me Australians as comrades and I will go anywhere duty calls.”
Reid, Richard. Gallipoli 1915. Sydney: ABC for the Australian Broadcasting, 2002, p33
Norman Duncan, AIF
“We landed under heavy fire and charged with fixed bayonets up the hill like mad. I shall never forget my feelings when first under fire, and I tell you that it was ‘hell’ that Sunday. Shrapnel and bullets went whizzing by…men dropped all around me. I never expected to get out of it alive.”
Pugsley, Christopher, and Lockyer, John. The Anzacs at Gallipoli: a Story for Anzac Day. Auckland: Reed, 1999, p6.
Image: Prive Norman David Duncan, 2nd Reinforcements, 26th Battalion. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/DA09299
“We landed under heavy fire and charged with fixed bayonets up the hill like mad. I shall never forget my feelings when first under fire, and I tell you that it was ‘hell’ that Sunday. Shrapnel and bullets went whizzing by…men dropped all around me. I never expected to get out of it alive.”
Pugsley, Christopher, and Lockyer, John. The Anzacs at Gallipoli: a Story for Anzac Day. Auckland: Reed, 1999, p6.
Image: Prive Norman David Duncan, 2nd Reinforcements, 26th Battalion. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/DA09299
"Well we landed. We marched about 100 yards and then took a rest and then word came to go up into the firing line at once. We threw our packs away and then got on with the game. The country was so rough and scrubby that you couldn't see where you were going and the shrapnel was bursting all round us and the bullets were so thick that we thought they were bees buzzing about us.
Craig Harold, letter to home at http://www.australiansatwar.gov.au/stories/stories_ID=7_war=W1_next=yes.html
Image: Australian troops going tint action after the landing on 25 April at about midday. Men in front may be seen kneeling in the scrub. The troops were under fire from the other side of Shrapnel Valley. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/G0090
Craig Harold, letter to home at http://www.australiansatwar.gov.au/stories/stories_ID=7_war=W1_next=yes.html
Image: Australian troops going tint action after the landing on 25 April at about midday. Men in front may be seen kneeling in the scrub. The troops were under fire from the other side of Shrapnel Valley. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/G0090