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Trooper Camillus Wallace Essay Trooper Camillus Wallace Essay Rod Martin Melbourne Herald 1 November 1915 He was only 162.5 centimetres tall, when the official requirement in October 1914 was a minimum of 167.5 centimetres. So why was Camillus (Wally) Essay recruited in Kensington on the twelfth of that month? One is tempted to think that his background as a station/stock hand on Werai Station in New South Wales, and his believed prowess as a horseman and rifle shot, made him such a valuable addition to the Australian Light Horse Brigade that the recruiting officer was prepared to overlook his 'shortcomings'. Perhaps it was for this reason, or perhaps for some other personal attribute but, whatever: twenty-two year-old Wally was signed up and allocated to the First Reinforcements of 8 Light Horse Regiment (LHR). Wally did his basic training at Broadmeadows before embarking with his comrades on A54 HMAT Runic at Port Melbourne on 25 February 1915. 8 Light Horse Regiment training at Broadmeadows 1914 AWM H03033) HMAT Runic (AWM P00707.027) Loading 8 Light Horse Regiment mounts on to the Runic (AWM H03147) Wally and his comrades probably arrived in Egypt in early April, and then were transported to Gallipoli, landing on 21 May. Their landing had been delayed by heavy fighting (the Turks carried out their one and only major offensive on 19 May and the Anzac troops were desperately fighting them off). After returning to Lemnos Island temporarily, the men were finally landed at Anzac Cove and they dug in for the night. The commander of the light horse brigade, Colonel Harry Chauvel, had agreed that his men should go to Gallipoli and act as infantry in support of the infantry brigades already there. The horses could not be used effectively in such a landscape and had been left behind at Heliopolis in Egypt. Along with the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, the horsemen had begun landing on 15 May, the early groups moving up Monash Valley to support Colonel John Monash's battalion, located at the head. The mood at the time of their landing must have been sombre. On 15 May, the Australian commander, Major-General William Bridges, set out to visit Chauvel as he landed. Bridges was shot in the thigh when he stepped out into the open from behind a sandbagged barrier. Quick thinking saved him from bleeding to death, but the wound was so severe that he would probably have died from shock if the leg had been amputated, and the belief was that he would die from gangrene poisoning if it were not. He was evacuated to the hospital ship Gascon and died at sea on 18 May. 8 LHR did not follow their comrades into Monash Valley, instead moving upwards and entering the trenches at Walker's Ridge, not far from Russell's Top and the narrow strip of land called the Nek. Walker's Ridge (AWM A03089) After a rest in early June they moved back to Walker's Ridge on the tenth. 8 Light Horsemen moving out of a rest area (AWM H03127) The unit suffered its first casualties on 29 May, one man being killed and one wounded after a Turkish attack. By 27 June, nine men had been killed and sixteen wounded, most of the injuries caused by Turkish shells. Another attack on the twenty-ninth killed six more men and wounded twelve. The unit went into a rest area again on 4 July at the foot of Walker's Ridge. Even there, however, the men were not safe. On 14 July, their medical officer was killed while swimming at Anzac Beach. As the embedded correspondent, Charles Bean, noted, no place was safe at Gallipoli. When the men went back into action at Walker's Top on 29 July, one man was killed and two wounded on the same day at an obviously appropriately named place called Shrapnel Terrace. Shrapnel Terrace on the steep path to Walker's Ridge (AWM J02738) By 6 August, 8 LHR had moved to the nearby Russell's Top, adjacent to a narrow stretch of land called the Nek, to participate in an offensive planned to begin that day. Two assaults, on Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, both to the left of Anzac Cove, would be made, and a British landing at Suvla Bay (seven kilometres north of the cove) would be carried out. To divert the Turks from providing support for their forces at Suvla, two diversions to the right of Anzac Cove would be made, one at Lone Pine and one further south at Cape Helles. 8 LHR at Russell's Top would form the first assault line across the Nek, capture the Turkish trenches there, move up to hill Baby 700, capture it and then link up with New Zealanders coming down from the top after capturing Chunuk Bair. The combined force would then take the Turkish stronghold on Battleship Hill and thus open the way across the peninsula towards the Dardanelles. Anyway, that was the plan. View across the Nek from the Australian trenches 1919. The Turkish trenches can clearly be seen, with Baby 700 in the background. Note the skull and bones in the centre of the picture.(AWM G02013B) An attack across the Nek was always going to be suicidal. The Turkish trenches were heavily fortified with rifles and machine guns. Australian troops would be running across open ground, straight into a hail of fire. A line of 150 8 LHR men would attack first and capture the forward trench, using bombs and bayonets. A second line would then sweep on past and take the lower trenches of Baby 700. Third and fourth lines from 10 LHR (Western Australians) would sweep on further, pass the Turkish fortifications and then dig in on Baby 700. We know a lot about this attack because it was immortalised in Peter Weir's film Gallipoli. At 4.30 am on 7 August, after an ineffective preliminary bombardment of the Turkish trenches that stopped seven minutes early, the first line of 8 LHR men went over the top, led by their commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander White. In an incredibly noisy hail of rifle and machine gun bullets, most died within three paces of the parapet (the forward top edge of the trench). White was killed after ten paces. There being no order to stand down, the second line went two minutes after the first. Les Carlyon tells us that it went even though Turkish fire was still thudding into the bodies of the first line, causing them to convulse in front of the parapet. The result was the same. The tragedy was expanded when the two lines of 10 LHR were ordered to go as well, even when the commander of the unit protested and recommended a stand-down. It was a wholesale slaughter. After withdrawing from the front and going into a bivouac, the acting commander of 8 LHR took a census of the survivors. He noted that twenty-two men were confirmed dead - including Alexander White - seventy-six were wounded and 127 were missing. Wally was listed among the missing. On 15 August, he and most of the others were declared killed in action. The bodies of those killed still lay across the Nek. It would have been suicidal to try to retrieve them. They remained there until the end of the war, slowly rotting away until the only things left were their skeletons. Hence the presence of the bones in the picture above. The only successful part of the offensive was the capture of the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine. However, it too was costly: 2 000 Australian casualties. After the war ended, the Imperial War Graves Commission interred the bones in anonymous graves. As Wally and his 8 LHR compatriots had no known graves, their names were inscribed on the memorial built at Lone Pine. (Commonwealth War Graves Commission) Sources Australian War Memorial National Archives of Australia Carlyon, Les: Gallipoli, Sydney, Pan McMillan, 2001 Coulthart, Ross: Charles Bean, Sydney, HarperCollins, 2014 McMullin, Ross: Pompey Elliott, Melbourne, Scribe, 2nd edition, 2008 .
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