Australian Troops Charging at Gallipoli 1915

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Australian troops charging at Gallipoli 1915.

Early on the morning of 25 April, 1915, a two-part landing took place on the peninsula, while at the same time the French made a diversionary attack at Kum Kale on the opposite coast of the straits. The British 29th Division under General Hunter-Weston landed at Cape Helles on the southern tip of the peninsula with the aim of taking Achi Bair Ridge, five miles inland. The British landing at five separate beaches faced varying degrees of opposition from the Turks, but at V Beach the landing proved to be a veritable bloodbath.

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Anzac Cove.

Albert Facey, one of the survivors, years later wrote a description of the landing at Anzac Cove:

"Bullets were thumping into us in the rowing-boat. Men were being hit and killed all around me...... I was terribly frightened. The boat touched bottom some thirty yards from the shore so we had to jump out and wade to the beach. The water in some places was up to my shoulders. The Turks had machine guns sweeping the strip of 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...... We all ran for our lives over the strip of beach and got into the scrub and bush."

In the following days in the face of constant sniping from the Turks who held the high ground everywhere, the Allies dug in. For the next eight-and-a-half months, they remained on the peninsula -- carrying out numerous assaults, and beating back ferocious Turkish counter attacks. In the first three weeks of the fighting, many Anzac lives were saved by a stretcher bearer who became a legend -- John Simpson Kirkpatrick who, with his donkey, braved the firing to bring the wounded from the cliffs to the beach, until he was killed on 19 May.

Source 5: Australian soldier carrying wounded at Gallipoli Source 5: