Very effective, I thought.
Probably suitable for ANZAC day too.
I've lately been putting together some of the family history too, and here's a small bit of a letter written from Gallipoli by a distant ancestor.
Some people might be interested to read it. This was one of the last big offensives & all to no avail as the Turks took the area again a couple of days later.
It was now 2am on Sunday, August 8th. We advanced out of the gully, and at the entrance met a Battalion who took over our position while we charged. We marched over our lines and into the enemies country and daylight came as we climbed down a gully. We were ordered to fix bayonets - and no shooting.
We crossed the gully and climbed up the other side, and when we reached the top in single file, an officer stationed there said to each man as he passed, "Now lads, at the double, for your life." When we got to the top we found the reason for his advice.
We were on an originally-cultivated plain (that was three quarters of a mile long) which we had to cross to get shelter from shrubs, three feet high, on the other side; the Turks being only a quarter of a mile away and entrenched in the shape of a semi-circle.
You can bet we doubled! I beat Donaldson's time by seconds.
All the way across the field we were accompanied by the zip-zip from Turkish machine-guns. Our men dropped fast, but not as fast as we would have thought. The Turkish guns seemed to aim too high.
We reached the bushes, and after a few minutes' rest with enemy bullets and shrapnel finding our men among the scrub, on we went again. We went along the rise in full view of the Turks, the bushes just coming up to our knees. Then, down into the gully, up another hill, and, advancing at two paces interval, we went down the hill towards the Turks.
Some men reached the Turkish trenches, but did not return; some are prisoners in Constantinople; the rest are on the Roll of Honour. The main body of us got as close as possible, then out came entrenching tools, and we were digging for dear life to get a heap of dirt in front of us. On our right were the Sikhs, and on our left, the Gurkhas, all digging as hard as possible; one man would dig for a few minutes while his mate kept firing, and vice-versa.
We kept this up for a couple of hours, and had just made rifle and machine-gun shelters, when the order came to retire. We had suffered much, and the Turks in front were too many for us. We only had two machine-guns with us, and when we retired the machine-guns took up positions on the hills near our old firing-line, and fired lead into the Turks as fast as they could while we retired.
Amidst heavy shrapnel, we carried the wounded as best we could, and fell back to our old positions.
