'Come on, boys they can't hit you'

If you had gazed out to sea in the pre-dawn gloom of 25 April 1915 from Ari Burnu (Bee Point) you would have seen the assembled British invasion fleet which had made the 100 kilometre trip through the night from the Greek island of Lemnos. Facing you would have been a collection of Royal Navy warships – battleships and destroyers (sometimes referred to as torpedo boats) and behind them large transport ships. In these ships were the soldiers of the ANZAC Corps, the 1st Australian Division and the New Zealand and Australian Division. Each man who was to land at dawn in the first wave had been inspected to ensure that he had all his equipment – rifle, pack, two empty sandbags, a full water bottle, 200 rounds of ammunition in his ammunition pouches and two little white bags containing an extra two days ration (a tin of bully beef, small tin of tea and sugar and a supply of hard coarse biscuits).

At 3.30 am, 36 rowing boats in groups of three, each group being towed by a small steamboat, left the battleships Prince of Wales, London and Queen and headed towards the coast. In the boats were six companies (a company contained about a hundred men), about 1200 soldiers from the 9th, 10th and 11th Battalions of the 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade. These men were to be the first ashore and they would be followed in closely by the remainder of their battalions and the 12th Battalion.

The landing was supposed to take place on a beach about a kilometre and a half further south from Ari Burnu and north of the promontory of Gaba Tepe. However, in the dark the battleship tows lost direction, bunched up and converged on Ari Burnu point. As the boat carrying Captain Leane of the 11th Battalion neared the shore he called out and pointed upwards – ‘Look at that’. Charles Bean described the moment:

The figure of a man was on the skyline of the plateau above them. A voice called on the land. From the top of Ari Burnu a rifle flashed. A bullet whizzed overhead and plunged into the sea. A second or two of silence … four or five shots as if from a sentry group. Another pause – then a scattered irregular fire growing very fast. They were discovered …

[Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, Vol 1, p 252]

As the boats grounded all around Ari Burnu point, men jumped into the water. Some were hit and drowned; most scrambled ashore soaking wet and made for the cover of the sandy banks of the beach. It was quickly realised that they had landed in the wrong place. ‘What are we to do next, Sir?’ someone asked the commanding officer of the 11th Battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Johnstone. ‘I don’t know, I’m sure. Everything is a terrible muddle’. But the orders had been drummed into this, the ‘Covering Force’: ‘You must go forward … you must get on whatever the opposition’. Lieutenant Talbot-Smith, the leader of the scouts of the 10th Battalion from South Australia, yelled at his men, ‘Come on boys, they can’t hit you’ and then led them straight up the hill towards the Turkish gunfire. Soon there was a general rush by hundreds of Australians up the slopes of Ari Burnu and on up towards the top of Plugge’s Plateau. It was steep enough and hard going with full kit and rifle. Men dug their bayonets into the ground to haul themselves along or grabbed the roots of plants.

A panorama of North Beach, the Sphinx and Walker's Ridge taken from Ari Burnu in February 1919 by Captain Hubert Wilkins. [AWM G02018]

Photo story

Wilkins accompanied Charles Bean's historical mission to Gallipoli during which he took this and many other photographs of the Anzac battlefield three years after the fighting there had ceased. The panorama shows the slopes rushed by Australian soldiers at dawn on 25 April 1915.

The first Turkish trench seized by the 11th Battalion from Western Australia was in the scrub half-way up towards Plugge's Plateau, on the right.

The steamer Milo, sunk as a breakwater for William's Pier in October 1915, was still there in 1919 but the pier had vanished.

Half way up, two 11th Battalion men stumbled on a Turkish trench. Bean has the story:

A single Turk jumped up like a rabbit, threw away his rifle and tried to escape. The nearest man could not fire as his rifle was full of sand. He bayoneted the Turk through his haversack and captured him. ‘Prisoner here!’ he shouted. ‘Shoot the bastard!’ was all the notice they received from others passing up the hill. But as in every battle he fought in the Australian soldier was more humane than in his words. The Turk was sent down to the beach in charge of a wounded man.

[Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, Vol 1, pp 258–9]

A stretcher bearer on the beach at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915. [AWM A05782]

Photo story

This man, whose identity is unknown, landed at 9.30 am with the 1st Field Ambulance, AAMC (Australian Army Medical Corps). Field Ambulances were the main medical unit on the battlefield itself assisting infantry battalion medical personnel in the evacuation of wounded and making initial judgments as to the treatment a man required. The-stretcher bearer in this photograph would most have found himself working in Shrapnel and Monash Valleys as the battle intensified in the days after the landing. Bean wrote of the stretcher bearers:

Stretcher-bearers are always exposed to... fire in the ordinary course of carrying out their... duty, as is everyone else. ...Wherever there is a wounded man to be got, there the stretcher-bearers have gone.

[Charles Bean, official despatch,Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, No 79, 26 July 1915, p.1635]

At Ari Burnu the 'Covering Force' faced only a small garrison of Turks who had orders to conduct a fighting withdrawal if confronted by a much larger invading force. Shortly after 5 am, the Australians had reached the height of Plugge's Plateau and taken few casualties. The Turks who had held a trench there were seen retreating back down the steep valley beyond.

Although it seemed successful this initial landing was only the beginning of a long and bloody struggle which lasted the whole of 25 April. While virtually the whole of the ANZAC Corps were able to get ashore that day, intense fighting developed along a ridge inland known as Second Ridge and on the slopes leading north-eastward towards the heights of Koja Temen Tepe. Strong and determined Turkish counter attacks held the Anzacs to the small area described in your Walk Introduction. By the evening of that first day the beach at Anzac Cove just to your left and to the south was crammed with wounded men. Moreover, Turkish artillery fire was bursting shells all over the Anzac area, causing many casualties. Many of the commanders on the spot advised getting off the peninsula as the objectives set for the first day had nowhere been reached and Turkish resistance was stiffening. The head of the so-called Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, General Sir Ian Hamilton, however, was told by his naval commanders that a re-embarkation from the beaches in the dark would be a disaster. At the same time, he heard that the Australian submarine, the AE2, had broken through the straits of the Dardanelles so he sent a message of reassurance which ended:

You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig, until you are safe.

So the Anzacs dug in and stayed.

Charles Bean's account: the landing, Anzac, 25 April 1915

Bean's Official History of Anzac

'Those men are Australians...'

7.17 a.m.–Someone says there are men on the skyline, and through the telescope I can see them–a few at this point, more of them further along the skyline–why, there are crowds of them. Some are standing up, others moving over the hill, others sitting down, apparently talking. Are they Turks or Australians? The Turks wear khaki, but their attitudes are extraordinarily like those of Australians–something of the stockyard fence about them. Behind them, I think on a nearer ridge, a long line of men is quietly digging on a nearer hill. Time and again I have seen the Engineers digging in the desert at Mena in just such a line. Surely those are the round disc-like tops of our men’s caps. There can be no question of it. Everybody knows it now. Those men are Australians, and whilst we are looking for them on the nearer ridges, and especially that shoulder rising from the beach on the right, they were right back there on the further hills. I can’t say what a load that has lifted off from one’s mind. Well done boys, great work! One has known that relief and elation before–I can’t help thinking of it when one has seen a hard fought match pulled off for Australia on the Sydney Cricket Ground. Only there is behind it this certainty–the victory this time has big solid consequences. They will not be finished with a single publication in the evening papers.

There they are, the figures of our men on the furthest hill, and the flags of the signalers busily waving half-way up the hill above the beach. There is no firing at all ashore now. There is no firing either from those guns on the promontory. Apparently they are silenced, even that last solitary one. No! just as a launch with a string of boats in tow, taking men from one of the ships ahead of us, gets in near the beach, the beggar fires again. The four-funneled warship immediately blazes at it. The gun on the promontory fires only one shot. Presently when another string of boats is on its way the gun fires again. The four-funneled warship immediately smothers it. Clearly they come out to fire one shot and then dive for their gun pit till the storm is over. Their last shot seemed to be right over some disembarking troops. I wonder if they got any. Another warship starts at once to poke her nose straight in around the southern corner of the point just as the four-funneled one has done to the north of it.

The firing on shore has begun again. One can see our men now on the crest of the ridge much further to the left than any were before. The morning is glorious, the sea as smooth as satin, shining in the sun. Far out the blue-gray crags of Imbros and Samothrace hang on the skyline. Nearer in are the great ships and the haze canopy of smoke.

[Charles Bean, dispatch, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 6 July 1915, p.1281] 

Our Heroes of the Dardanelles: cover of the Sydney Mail, 12 May 1915 ...

Newspaper story

This romanticised version of the landing at Anzac first appeared in the Sydney Mail on 12 May 1915. It reveals the way in which the event was being treated in the Australian press. However, it shows how, in the absence of available photographs, the press in Australia were trying to provide readers with some idea of the terrain of Gallipoli where their friends and family members were fighting. This image shows not the dawn landing of the ‘covering force’ but the support troops who came ashore throughout the day mainly at Anzac Cove. The accompanying caption stated:

During the day reinforcements were landed (as shown in our picture) but the covering force’s task had been so splendidly accomplished that it allowed the disembarkation to be carried out uninterruptedly, except for the never ceasing sniping of well-hidden Turks.

A digger’s account: the landing of the 12th Battalion, 25 April 1915

Man the boats...

As we neared the peninsular of Gallipoli, the Captain of the Destroyers gave the order for silence and for the men to stop smoking and thus, in darkness and in silence, we were carried towards the land which was to either make or mar the name of Australia. On either side of us we could dimly see other destroyers bearing the rest of the Third Brigade. I am quite sure that very few of us realized that at last we were actually bound for our first baptism of fire, for it seemed as though we were just out on one of our night maneuvers, but very soon we realized that it was neither a surprise party nor a moonlight picnic. At about 4am we heard the first sounds of firing and at 4.10am we first came under fire at about 200 yards from the beach and the Captain of the destroyer gave the order “Man the boats, men” and without the slightest hesitation the first tow filled their boats took up their oars and started to row for the beach, amid a perfect hail of bullets, shrapnel, and the rattle of machine gun. Col Clarke, Col Hawley, Capt Northcott, Major Elliott, Capt Burt, Lieut Patterson, Lieut Room, Lieut Jorgenson, Lieut Rafferty were all in the first tow. There was some delay in the steam pinnace picking up the tow ropes of these boats but eventually they started for the shore. I turned around to get the second tow ready, when the man just in front of me dropped, hit in the head. This was the first casualty and very soon there were several others hit. There was some difficulty in getting the second tow ready, but eventually when a naval cutter came alongside we got in and started for the beach; 3 men were hit before the boat struck the shore. When she hit the beach, I gave the word to get out and out the men got at once, in water up to their necks in some cases, men actually had to swim several strokes before they got their footing. It was almost impossible to walk with full marching order, absolutely drenched to the skin and I fell twice before I got to the dry beach where I scrambled up under cover of a sand ridge. I ordered the men to dump their packs off, load their rifles, and waited a few seconds for the men to get their breath.

It was just breaking dawn and, as we looked towards the sound of the firing, we were faced by almost perpendicular cliffs about 200 feet above sea level, and as we were of the opinion that most of the fire was coming from this quarter, it was evident that this was the direction of our attack. Therefore, after a minute or two, having regained our breath, we started to climb.

[Lieutenant Ivor Margett's, diary, 25 April 1915, AWM 1DRL/0478]

Anzac Cove, 25 April 1915: Photograph for the Melbourne Age, 25 April 1915. [AWM PS1659]

From Ari Burnu point, where you are standing, Anzac Cove lies to your left. This photograph was taken by the correspondent for the Melbourne Age, Philip Schuler, some time on the afternoon of 25 April 1915. It shows clearly the chaos of the beach at that point littered with discarded personal equipment and full of wounded men being looked after by stretcher-bearers with Red Cross armbands.

Many of these men have been brought down from the fighting up on the ridges which developed strongly by midday of 25 April as the Turks intensified their counter-attacks trying to drive the Anzacs back to the beaches. No provision had been made for the huge numbers of casualties suffered on the day of the landing as it had been anticipated that the force would quickly have penetrated well inland thus allowing hospitals to be set up ashore in sheltered positions.

Between 5.30 pm on 25 April and 3.00 am on the following morning, over 1,700 wounded were evacuated from Anzac Cove.