GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
A special publication by NZME. local network • April 2015
2
Northern Advocate
Friday, April 24, 2015
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
Each year on Anzac Day, New Zealanders and Australians mark the anniversary of the Gallipoli landings of April 25, 1915. On that day thousands of young men, far from their homes, stormed the beaches on the Gallipoli Peninsula in what is now Turkey.
New Zealand and Australian soldiers land at Anzac Cove. ■ ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY Ref: PAColl-5936-18
Anzacs’ harsh and bloody battle cemented
F
OR EIGHT long months New Zealand troops, alongside those from Australia, Britain and Ireland, France, India and Newfoundland, battled harsh conditions and the Ottoman forces desperately fighting to protect their homeland. By the time the campaign ended, more than 130,000 men had died: at least 87,000 Ottoman soldiers and 44,000 Allied soldiers. Among the dead were 2779 New Zealanders, about a fifth of all those who had landed on the peninsula. New Zealand’s path to Gallipoli began with the outbreak of war between Britain and Germany in August 1914. Prime Minister William Massey pledged the support of
New Zealand, as part of the British Empire, and set about raising a military force. The 8454-strong New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) left Wellington in October 1914, and after linking up with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) steamed in convoy across the Indian Ocean, expecting to join British forces fighting on the Western Front. In late October 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. This changed the strategic situation, especially in the Middle East, where Ottoman forces now posed a direct threat to the Suez Canal, an important British shipping lane between Europe and Asia.
As a precaution the British authorities decided to offload the Australian and New Zealand expeditionary forces in Egypt to complete their training and bolster the British forces guarding the canal. In February 1915, elements of the NZEF helped fight off an Ottoman raid on the Suez Canal.
THE INVASION
The NZEF’s wait in Egypt ended in early April 1915, when it was transported to the Greek island of Lemnos to prepare for the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The peninsula was important because it guarded the entrance to the Dardanelles Strait – a strategic waterway leading to the Sea of Marmara and, via the Bosphorus, the
Black Sea. The Allied plan was to break through the straits, capture the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul), and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Access to the straits and the Sea of Marmara would also provide the Allies with a supply line to Russia, and open up new areas in which to attack the Central Powers. Following the failure of British and French warships to ‘force’ the straits, the Allies dispatched the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF) to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula. New Zealanders and Australians made up nearly half of the MEF’s 75,000 troops; the rest were from Great Britain and Ireland, France, India and Newfoundland.
THE
ANZAC
DA
Led by Lieutenant General Sir Ian Hamilton, the MEF launched its invasion of the Dardanelles on April 25, 1915. While British (and later French) troops made the main landing at Cape Helles on the southern tip of the peninsula. Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood’s Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, soon to become known as Anzacs, made a diversionary attack 20km to the north at Gaba Tepe (Kabatepe). Because of navigational errors the Anzacs landed 2km north of the intended site. Instead of a flat stretch of coast they came ashore at Anzac Cove, a narrow beach overlooked by steep hills. The
■ Continued p3
A combined service of Paparoa RSA and The Kauri Museum will take place at the Museum with fall in at the Matakohe War Memorial Hall at 10.30am.
AT
KAURI MUSEUM
“Three Cousins, Defying the odds, Surviving Gallipoli” Exhibition paying tribute to the experiences of the Underwood Family, during the Gallipoli campaign.
www.kaurimuseum.com
The march to the Flagstaff will be accompanied by a mounted soldier dressed in a WWI uniform and by WWI nurses in uniform – stopping at the Cemetery Flag, Gun Memorial and War Memorial Hall before reaching the Volunteers Hall of the Museum. Join the Committee of the Friends of the Museum for a cup of tea after the service.
09 431 7417
Friday, April 24, 2015
Northern Advocate
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget key dates April 15, 1915: Gallipoli landings May 8: NZ troops take part in Second Battle of Krithia August 8: NZ troops capture Chunuk Bair December 15-20: Troops evacuated from Anzac area
EVACUATION
New Zealand sniper team at work during the Gallipoli campaign. The observer (right) is using a telescope to find targets for the sniper (left). ■ ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY Ref: PAColl-3604-04
the bonds of nationhood ■ Continued from p2 New Zealanders, who were part of the New Zealand and Australian Division, followed the Australians in and took up positions in the northern part of the Anzac sector.
STALEMATE
The landings never came close to achieving their goals. Although the Allies managed to secure footholds on the peninsula, the fighting soon degenerated into trench warfare, with the Anzacs holding their tenuous perimeter against increasingly strong Ottoman attacks. The troops endured heat, flies, the stench of unburied bodies, insufficient water and
disease. Early in May 1915 the New Zealand Infantry Brigade was ferried south to Helles, where on May 8 it took part in an assault on the village of Krithia (now Alchiteppe. The attack was a disaster; the New Zealanders suffered more than 800 casualties but achieved nothing.
AUGUST OFFENSIVE
In August 1915 the Allies launched a major offensive in an attempt to break the deadlock. The plan was to capture the high ground overlooking the Anzac sector, the Sari Bair Range, while a British force landed further north at Suvla Bay. Major General Sir Alexander Godley’s New Zealand and Australian Division played a
prominent part in this offensive, with New Zealand troops capturing one of the hills, Chunuk Bair. This was the limit of the Allied advance; an Ottoman counterattack forced the troops who had relieved the New Zealanders off Chunuk Bair, while the British failed to make any progress inland from Suvla. In the aftermath of the Sari Bair offensive the Allies tried to break through the Ottoman line north of Anzac Cove, which was now linked with the beachhead at Suvla. New Zealanders also took part in this fighting, participating in costly attacks at Hill 60 in late August.
Hill 60 turned out to be the last major Allied attack at Gallipoli. The failure of the August battles meant a return to stalemate. In mid-September 1915 the exhausted New Zealand infantry and mounted rifles were briefly withdrawn to Lemnos to rest and receive reinforcements from Egypt. By the time the New Zealanders returned in November the future of the campaign had been determined. Following the failure of the August offensive the British Government began questioning the value of persisting at Gallipoli, especially given the need for troops on the Western Front and at Salonika in northern Greece, where Allied forces were supporting Serbia against the Central Powers. In October the British replaced Hamilton as commander-in-chief of the MEF. His successor, Lieutenant General Sir Charles Munro, quickly proposed evacuation. On November 22 the British decided to cut their losses and evacuate Suvla and Anzac. In contrast to earlier operations planning moved quickly and efficiently. The evacuation of Anzac began on December 15, with 36,000 troops withdrawn over the following five nights. The last party left in the early hours of December 20, the night of the last evacuation from Suvla. British and French forces remained at Helles until January 9, 1916.
AFTERMATH
Gallipoli was a costly failure for the Allies: 44,000 Allied soldiers died, including more than 8700
Australians. Among the dead were 2779 New Zealanders — about a fifth of those who fought on the peninsula. Victory came at a high price for the Ottoman Empire, which lost 87,000 men. Shortly after the October 1918 armistice with the Ottoman Empire, British and Dominion graves registration units landed on Gallipoli and began building permanent cemeteries for the dead of 1915 and 1916. In the 1920s the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) completed a network of Anzac and British cemeteries and memorials that still exist on the peninsula. In 1925 the New Zealand Government unveiled a New Zealand battlefield memorial on the summit of Chunuk Bair. The battlefields are now part of the 33,000ha Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, or Peace Park.
LEGACY
The Gallipoli campaign was a relatively minor aspect of World War I and the number of dead, although horrific, pales in comparison with the casualties on the Western Front in France and Belgium. Nevertheless, for New Zealand, Australia and Turkey it has great significance. In Turkey the campaign marked the beginning of a national revival. The Ottoman hero of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal, would eventually become, as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding President of the Turkish Republic. In New Zealand and Australia Gallipoli helped foster a developing sense of national identity. Those at home were proud of how their men had performed on the world stage, establishing a reputation troops determined to fight as hard as possible in difficult conditions. Anzac Day grew out of this pride. First observed on April 25, 1916, the date of the landing has become a crucial part of the fabric of national life, a time to remember not only those who died at Gallipoli, but all New Zealanders who served their country in times of war and peace.
The Gallipoli campaign, www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/ (Ministry for Culture and Heritage)
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Northern Advocate
Friday, April 24, 2015
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
New Zealanders fighting for their country CHARLES BEGG
C
Charles Begg. ■ CAPITAL AND
COAST DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
HARLES BEGG was New Zealand’s most decorated member of the Medical Corps during World War I. Born in Dunedin in September 1879, he went to Kaikorai School and Otago Boys’ High School, then the University of Otago Medical School in 1898. He graduated with distinction from the University of Edinburgh in 1903. He became an MD in 1905 and the following year returned to New Zealand where he went into general practice in Wellington. In December 1909 he married Lillian Treadwell. The couple had two sons. Appointed commander of the New Zealand Field Ambulance at the outbreak of war, Begg arrived in Egypt in December 1914. The Field Ambulance saw their first action during an Ottoman attack on the Suez Canal in early February 1915, then left for Gallipoli on April 17. When the Anzacs landed on April 25 casualties were unexpectedly heavy. Begg sent his bearer sections ashore while surgical teams provided
“
Begg set up a dressing station on the beach, where surgeons worked under constant fire.
treatment on ships. But many did not get the surgery they needed so Begg set up a dressing station on the beach, where surgeons worked under constant fire. In late June, a Turkish shell destroyed the station. Begg, although wounded, relocated his unit further along the beach. By early August this dressing station had treated 15,000 wounded Anzacs. The workload after the assault on Chunuk Bair in early
CHARLES MACKESY
August was almost impossible to cope with. Hundreds of men lay unprotected on the beach. Begg appealed to his superiors and infantry units arrived to help. Together with the navy, which resumed barge transport, they managed to clear the beach by August 13. After a short convalescence in England recovering from enteric fever, Begg returned to Gallipoli in early November. He helped to plan the successful withdrawal of Allied soldiers from Anzac the following month. Attention now turned to the Western Front, where the New Zealand Division arrived in April and May, 1916. Respiratory and enteric diseases, infectious fevers, venereal disease, scabies, trench foot and battle fatigue were among the many problems. In October 1916 Begg became Deputy Director of Medical Services in II Anzac Corps, responsible for efforts to improve the general health of the troops through better food, accommodation, health education, immunisation, sanitation and counselling. Despite a severe winter the condition of the men improved. At Passchendaele in October 1917 the muddy conditions made it impossible to use wheeled vehicles. Teams of six bearers spent up to seven hours at a time battling knee-deep mud to carry the wounded to dressing stations. In 1918 Begg, who had assumed responsibility for the care of wounded from the French Fifth Army, was presented with their highest order, the Croix de Guerre. He received many other honours, including Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB) and Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). He was mentioned in dispatches on three occasions. At the end of November 1918, Charles Begg returned to London as Director of Medical Services. Eight weeks later he developed influenza, then pneumonia. He died on February 2, 1919 and was buried with full military honours in Walton-onThames.
C
harles Ernest Randolph Mackesy was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 9 January 1861, the son of Captain Ernest Randolph Mackesy, formerly of the 97th Regiment of Foot. His father had come to New Zealand after leaving his regiment, and died at Auckland in October 1860. Mackesy’s father had acquired a 268-acre property near Whangarei and in the early 1890s Mackesy learned that this was about to be forfeited for nonpayment of rates. He decided to come to New Zealand, and the family developed the property into a successful farm and orchard. Gold was found at the back of the farm, but not in payable quantities. Mackesy volunteered on the outbreak of the First World War, and left with the main body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force as a lieutenant colonel in command of the Auckland Mounted Rifles Regiment. Mackesy landed at Gallipoli with his regiment in May 1915. He was soon sent back to Egypt to take charge of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade base. He was, however, frequently in acting command of the Mounted Rifles during
ANDREW RUSSELL
A
NDREW RUSSELL was born in Napier and educated in England at Harrow and then Sandhurst. After serving for five years in India and Burma, Russell left the 1st Border Regiment to return to New Zealand to farm sheep. In 1900 he formed the Hawke's Bay Mounted Rifle Volunteers and in 1911 was appointed commander of the Wellington Mounted Rifles Brigade. In 1914 Russell was given command of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and sailed for Egypt. Six months later the brigade landed at Gallipoli, without their horses, as infantrymen. His men were instrumental in the seizure of Chunuk Bair, opening the way for an infantry advance. For his efforts at Gallipoli, Russell was knighted in 1915. In 1916 Russell took control of the New Zealand Division in France. He was a front-line general, seen to take personal risks. The division became one
Stories on this page courtesy of http://www.nzhistory.net.nz
WHANGAREI
the Sinai — Palestine campaign of 1916 — 18. Three times mentioned in dispatches, Mackesy was appointed a DSO and a CMG in 1917. He served briefly as military governor of Salt and ‘Amma¯n, east of the Jordan River, in late 1918, and remained for some months to advise the new Arab administration. Mackesy was made a CBE in 1919. In late 1919 he resumed farming, and in 1921 opened an Auckland office of the land agency he had established before the war in Whangarei. When his wife died in August 1920, he returned to Whangarei, serving on the local county council and harbour board between 1921 and 1923. On 20 November 1925 Mackesy died of heart failure at his home in Onerahi Road. ‘Quite a gloom was cast over Whangarei’; flags flew at half-mast, and he was buried the following day with full military honours.
of the best fighting units in France, largely because of Russell’s insistence on zealous discipline and efficient administration. The New Zealand Division was involved in the third battle of the Somme in 1916, and, in June 1917 they were tasked with capturing the town of Messines (Mesen) in Flanders. Russell’s aggressive strategy resulted in the seizure of the town, but there were 3700 New Zealand casualties, including 700 deaths. The New Zealand Division again suffered severe casualties in October 1917, during the attack on Passchendaele, when 800 died. After the war, Russell was president of the Returned Soldiers’ Association for more than a decade. He lived on his sheep station at Tunanui until his death at 92.
Andrew Russell. ■ ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY Ref: 1/1-002064-G
— Adapted by Patrick Whatman from the DNZB biography by Christopher Pugsley
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Friday, April 24, 2015
Northern Advocate
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
5
Our brave soldiers
Disease stalked cramped hillsides of Gallipoli L IFE for New Zealand soldiers on Gallipoli was tough. Packed inside the tiny Anzac perimeter they endured extreme weather and primitive living conditions during their eight months on the peninsula. During summer temperatures soared; winter brought rain, snow and bone-chilling winds. After a few months in crowded conditions on the peninsula, soldiers began to come down with dysentery and typhoid because of inadequate sanitation, unburied bodies and swarms of flies. Poor food, water shortages and exhaustion reduced the men’s resistance to disease.
LIVING CONDITIONS
The area the New Zealanders and Australians at Anzac Cove occupied was tiny — less than 6sq km. Conditions were harsh. The area had no natural water so there were
‘‘
Whenever possible, whether in the line or out of it, a man paired off with a mate and established a ‘bivvy’. With pick and shovel a cut was made in a slope that gave protection from the bullets of the snipers, and if possible from the bursts of shrapnel. A couple of salvaged oil sheets pinned across with salvaged bayonets made a roof that would keep out the dew at night and the sun glare by day. Furnishings consisted of commandeered sandbags or old overcoats for softening the hardness of the baked floor, a cut down petrol tin for a ‘bath’ and whole one for storing water. — Ormond Burton, The Silent Division, 1935 constant shortages. Water, food, ammunition and other supplies arrived on ships and were landed on the beach with great difficulty.
SUPPLIES
Poor food contributed to a general deterioration in the men’s health. Troops lived on tinned bully beef, army biscuits and jam; fresh fruit and vegetables were non-existent. Sanitation was also a problem. With up to 25,000 men packed into such a cramped space, latrines filled up fast and there was limited space for new ones. Body lice became endemic, and diarrhoea, dysentery and enteric fever (typhoid) flourished in the unsanitary conditions.
The beach at Anzac Cove was congested with boats and barges offloading men and supplies. Overcrowding remained a problem inside the tiny Anzac perimeter until the Sari Bair Offensive in August 1915.
■ ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY. REF: PAColl-8147-1-08
Bully beef and biscuits. You couldn’t eat your biscuit dry. It was like chewing rock. You’d break your teeth on the biscuits if you got stuck into them. You had to soak it. For pudding we used to have biscuit soaking in water and the jam all mixed up together. They issued you with a small tin of jam. — Russell Weir, Wellington Battalion, in Jane Tolerton’s An Awfully Big Adventure: New Zealand World War One Veterans Tell Their Stories. The stench of the dead made living conditions even worse. Unburied corpses littered no man’s land, and others lay in shallow graves close to the dugouts of the living. I n the searing heat of summer, the rotting corpses, food and body waste were a breeding ground for flies and the diseases they spread. Swarms of flies tormented the men, turning simple tasks such as preparing and eating food into horrible ordeals. Psychological pressures magnified the physical hardships. Service in the front line was always dangerous. Opposing trenches were extremely close, barely 4m apart in some places. At this range enemy hand-grenades, or ‘‘bombs’’, caused a steady stream of casualties. Danger also lurked behind the front line. No place within the tiny perimeter was safe from enemy fire, and Ottoman shells and snipers took a toll of troops in support areas.
MEDICAL TREATMENT
For those wounded on Gallipoli the wait for treatment and evacuation was often long and agonising. Compared with the organisation and efficiency of the Western Front, medical services at Gallipoli were a shambles. The evacuation framework for casualties — moving wounded from field ambulances to casualty clearing stations and then military hospitals — fell apart, as poor planning and the sheer scale of casualties overwhelmed the available medical resources. During the April landings and the August offensive the advanced dressing stations in the gullies and the casualty clearing stations on the beach could not cope with the large numbers of wounded. The stations themselves often came under fire because of their exposed positions. From the field ambulances and casualty clearing stations, wounded were evacuated by boat to hospital ships and ambulance transports — dubbed ‘‘black ships’’ — waiting offshore. Poor co-ordination and mismanagement meant that many serious cases were left on the beach too long; once on board they found appalling conditions. There were no beds. Some were still on the stretchers on which they had been carried down from the hills, some on the palliasses thrown down
on the hard decks. The few Red Cross orderlies were terribly overworked. For 12 hours on end an orderly would be alone with 60 desperately wounded men in a hold dimly lit by one arc lamp. None of them had been washed and many were still in their torn and bloodstained uniforms. There were bandages that had not been touched for two or three days — and men who lay in an indescribable mess of blood and filth. Most of them were in great pain, many could get no ease or rest, and all were parched with thirst. Those who slept dreamed troubled dreams and those waked were in torment. — Ormond Burton, New Zealand Medical Corps, quoted in Gavin McLean, Ian McGibbon and Kynan Gentry’s The Penguin Book of New Zealanders at War. The ships transported wounded to hospitals in Egypt, Lemnos, Malta or even England. Such was the chaos that relatively lightly wounded men ended up in England, while convalescents were sent back to Gallipoli.
UNIFORM
Infantrymen carried a rifle, ammunition, bayonet, water bottle, entrenching tool, haversack, and a pack containing more than 30kg of extra rations, water, firewood and clothing. Individual food rations, known as iron rations, consisted of tinned bully beef, hard biscuits, tea, sugar and beef cubes. Soldiers attached most of this kit to webbing, which they wore over their uniforms. Most New Zealanders on Gallipoli wore Territorial Force uniforms introduced in 1912. These were a darker shade of green than the khakibrown British uniforms and had coloured piping on the epaulettes to distinguish branches of service. As the campaign dragged on to summer, comfort and practicality became more important to the Anzacs than maintaining dress regulations and appearance. Soldiers stitched bits of cloth to the back of their peaked ‘‘forage caps’’ for better sun protection, rolled up or cut off shirtsleeves, and turned trousers into shorts. Most kept their hair short to deter lice.
The Gallipoli campaign, nzhistory.net.nz/war/ (Ministry for Culture and Heritage)
We Remember
Ka maumahara Saturday | R āhoroi 25 April 2015 from 5:50am
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GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
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GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
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Friday, April 24, 2015
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
F
or three years during World War I, millions of soldiers holed up in a warren of trenches, fighting and dying in nightmarish conditions along a barely moving frontline. For the French, British, Germans, Anzacs and others caught in this futile fight, the rain, biting cold and thick mud, the awful stench of death and scourge of rats would haunt their daily lives as much as the constant onslaught from the enemy. “When the world is red and reeking, and the shrapnel shells are shrieking, and your blood is slowly leaking, carry on,” urged one of the Great War’s soldier poets Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, nicknamed “Woodbine Billy”, who chronicled the horrors of the trenches. “When the broken battered trenches, are like the bloody butchers’ benches, and the air is thick with stenches, carry on.” In the summer of 1914 soldiers had set out for a swift war, but after several mobile and extremely bloody months, rival armies decimated by artillery fire found themselves locked in a stalemate along the battle’s Western Front. To better protect themselves, soldiers burrowed a line of trenches that stretched for 700km from the North Sea through France to Switzerland, where both sides would dig in for three years, suffering crippling losses but making little headway. The first trenches were hastily dug, often shallow holes, becoming deeper and more elaborate as the stalemate dragged on. They were dug in a zigzag so that if an enemy soldier got in he could not open fire along the whole length of the
Fear, death and futility Living in the trenches was like being stuck in a nightmare, say Fran Blandy and Pierre Marie Giraud
CELEBRATING THE PAST
BUILDING A FUTURE
trench. Fields of barbed wire surrounded the ditches, aimed at slowing any advance through “no man’s land” — the area between enemy lines that was sometimes only a few dozen metres. The warren of trenches usually included a frontline, a reserve line and a support line, which soldiers would rotate through, usually spending only days at a time at the front. Either way, daily life in the unhygienic trenches was miserable. Heavy rain flooded the trenches, needing to be scooped out at downtimes. Walls collapsed in a muddy mess that would freeze in the thick of winter and made moving around with heavy arms and equipment a terrible ordeal. Toilets were improvised in the trench — going outside left you open to attack — and with no means to wash, and garbage and dead bodies piling up in and around the ditch, the stench could be overpowering. “The rank stench of those bodies haunts me still, and I remember things I’d best forget,” wrote English poet Siegfried Sassoon, who fought on the Western Front. Soldiers also had to deal with the scourge of multiplying rats who would feed off these bodies as well as lice and flies. If this wasn’t enough to drive entrenched soldiers to the brink of sanity, the constant fear of death certainly was. Barrages of artillery fire and explosions in the trenches and constant sniper fire gave rise to the term shell-shock, the trauma and mental breakdown suffered by many soldiers on the Western Front. “I knew a simple soldier boy, who grinned at life in empty joy.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum, with crumps and lice and lack of rum, he put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again,” wrote Sassoon in the grimly entitled poem Suicide in the trenches. Food often arrived cold, while bread was frozen or mouldy. For French soldiers, it was their daily litre of red wine and cigarettes that helped ease them through the day. Mornings for both sides began with a pre-dawn “stand to arms” where men would climb up on the fire-step, rifle and bayonet at the ready in case of a dawn raid. After an inspection, breakfast would be eaten during an unofficial truce between the two sides, one of several such tacit “live and let live” agreements on the frontline. Although the threat of danger was never far, attacks were most likely to take place at night so days were dedicated to repairing the trenches and other vital jobs. In quiet times, soldiers passed the time tinkering with whatever they could lay their hands on — wood, scrap fabric or bullet casings — to cobble together lamps, pipes, jewels or even musical instruments. Letter writing and reading was a lifeline, with 10 billion letters and packages exchanged during the conflict, although many tried to hide the horror of their daily lives from loved ones. Nighttime brought raids, transfers of supplies and movement of troops between the trenches. “The air is loud with death, The dark air spurts with fire, The explosions ceaseless are,” wrote another war poet, Isaac Rosenberg, killed in 1918, in the chilling Dead Man’s Dump.
— AFP
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Northern Advocate
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
Lottie’s Story
endured ‘terrible clean ups’ on the Maheno. The ship shuttled sick and wounded men between Gallipoli and hospitals on Lemnos island and in Egypt, Malta, and England. In ‘gloomy’ England, she printed these business cards — she expected to be on the Maheno for some time. ‘London is so SAD, GLOOMY, AND TERRIBLE — nothing but huge placards up everywhere imploring men to enlist to save their country, their flag.’ Lottie to Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner, 28 October 1915
Family at War
Lottie Le Gallais (1881–1956) Nurse Sister Mayoress
Early Life
Lottie (Charlotte) Le Gallais was born in Clevedon, Auckland, in 1881 — the eldest of four siblings. She attended country schools around the region and later qualified as a registered nurse. Lottie’s family lived in Clevedon, where she was born, until she was 14. Her father then took up farming at Mangakura, north of Auckland. Lottie became a registered nurse in 1911, aged 30, and then joined the staff of Auckland Public Hospital. She’d begun her three years of training the year after her mother died.
Military Nurse
Lottie was selected as a military nurse in June 1915. Within two weeks, she’d left for Gallipoli (via Egypt) on the hospital ship Maheno, which would transport sick and wounded soldiers to hospitals away from the front. She was eager to meet up with her brother Leddie, who was stationed on Gallipoli. Lottie was one of 79 in the second contingent of New Zealand nurses chosen to serve overseas. These new recruits had to report for duty in Wellington on 6 July 1915, a few
days before their departure on the hospital ship Maheno. As a military nurse, Lottie wore a red woollen shoulder cape like this one, along with a badge specially designed for the New Zealand Army Nursing Service (NZANS). A few days before leaving, Lottie wrote to her brother Leddie (Leddra), who’d left for Gallipoli in April. She shared the news of her recent selection as one of the 10 ‘Maheno nurses’. ‘Very proud I am to be one of the staff. GOODNESS KNOWS WHEN you will get this letter — or when I will get one from you — perhaps we will meet first.’ Lottie to her brother Leddie, 7 July 1915 Lottie was inundated with farewell messages from family, friends, and nursing associates. The telegrams here are from her father, her nursing friend Milly Tilly, and the Lady Superintendent of Auckland Public Hospital, Miss Orr. The Maheno left Wellington on 11 July 1915. It would be Lottie’s home for the foreseeable future. The day before the ship left, Lottie wrote to her future husband, Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner. ‘Things are RAPIDLY GETTING SHIPSHAPE. My bunk is looking better now … I got your photo, [with] the
silver frame, hung up with string — top end of the bed.’ Lottie to Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner, 10 July 1915 Many on board the Maheno signed this linen cloth during the voyage. Lottie’s signature is circled . The nurses embroidered the names in red, and the cloth was sent back home to be sold to raise funds for the war effort. During the five-week voyage to Egypt, the 10 Maheno nurses busily prepared equipment and supplies. Only in rare moments could they stop for photographs, or socialise with the other 69 nurses en route to military hospitals. ‘[My friend] Haidee … might just as well not be on the ship FOR ALL I SEE OF HER.’ Lottie to Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner, 17 July 1915 When the Maheno arrived in Egypt in August, Lottie contacted her sweetheart, Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner, to say she’d arrived safely. She mentioned the hospitals there, where she saw the effects of the fighting on Gallipoli first-hand. ‘It was terrible to see the wounded, they all say Gallipoli is HELL AND DEATH … from what we can hear, the losses are awful.’ Lottie to Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner, 23 August 1915 For three months, Lottie
Two of Lottie’s three brothers also volunteered. Leddie departed in April 1915, and Owen left later that year. The family tried to stay in touch, but the post was always months behind the Maheno. Lottie only received the sad news of Leddie’s death four months after he was killed. Leddie (left) and Owen Le Gallais — both teachers — before the war. Often brothers, and sometimes sisters, volunteered together. The third Le Gallais brother, Kenneth, was keen to join up, but Owen discouraged him. Leddie Le Gallais in his army uniform. He left New Zealand with the 4th Reinforcements on 17 April 1915. Before landing on Gallipoli in June, Leddie’s troopship lay anchored off the Greek island of Lemnos. There, he penned a final letter to his family. After that, he made do with military field postcards. ‘Well, Dad, I never thought that I would be a soldier, but now I am one, I am determined to be a good one … IF I HAVE BAD LUCK, well I suppose it had to be.’ Leddie to his family, 3 June 1915 Leddie was killed in action on 23 July 1915. His father found out on 4 August and wired Owen, now in military training camp. Lottie didn’t know until November, when her unopened letters to Leddie were returned, stamped with the bare facts. ‘SADDER NEWS I never heard … It is a day I will never forget.’ Owen Le Gallais’ diary, 5 August 1915
ANN N IS S VE ERY Y PR ROU UD OF ER HERIITAG GE, AN ND CAN N HE HE ELP YOU U SECU URE E YO OUR R DE ESC CEND DAN NT’S S HE ERIT TAGE E WITH H AD DVIC CE ON: Ann Gardner with the larger than life model of her grandmother, Maheno hospital ship nurse Lottie Le Gallais at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
ANN GARDNER LLB
Barrister & Solicitor 20 John St., Whangarei
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Back Home
At the end of November, the Maheno carried invalided troops — and a bereft Lottie — back to New Zealand. After arriving home on 1 January 1916, Lottie worked again at Auckland Public Hospital and also cared for her ailing father. Nurses, medical staff, crew, and patients signed Lottie’s autograph book during the final days of the Maheno’s homeward journey. Months after Lottie returned, ‘dead letters’ from her deceased brother, Leddie, continued to follow her home. The war continued to affect Lottie’s loved ones. Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner was conscripted at the end of 1917 and, despite an appeal, went into Featherston Military Training Camp six months later. Lottie had one more stint of military nursing, working at Featherston Military Training Camp during the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic.
Later Life
Lottie married Charles ‘Sonnie’ Gardner eight months before the war ended. Their daughter was born in 1919, and a son in 1921. During the early 1930s, Lottie supported Charles in his role as Mayor of New Lynn. They lived in the borough all their married life. Lottie supported her local Returned Soldiers’ Association (RSA). She was also involved with the Auckland Exservicewomen’s Association, which sold poppies for Anzac Day. The death of Lottie’s brother, Leddie, is commemorated at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Auckland Province’s Roll of Honour encircles the museum’s top floor. Leddie’s name, along with almost 7,300 others, is carved into the white marble walls, inset with bronze leaf. Lottie Gardener, ne´e Le Gallais, in 1951, five years before her death. Her daughter gave Lottie’s wartime letters and photos to Auckland War Memorial Museum in 1995. This gesture has enabled the museum to honour and forever preserve Lottie’s experiences as a Maheno nurse.
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Northern Advocate
Friday, April 24, 2015
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget
Kiwi journalist coined nickname ‘Anzac’ I N December 1914, five months before New Zealand and Australian troops began dying in their thousands on the shores of Gallipoli, a New Zealand headquarters clerk stationed in Egypt ordered the making of a rubber stamp. Sergeant Keith Melvyn Little, 21, worked at the headquarters of Lieutenant General William Birdwood, the British commanding officer of the joint Australian and New Zealand force. The force, which was to join the futile Allied campaign to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula and open the way for allied navies to the Black Sea, was as yet unnamed. Little, a journalist before he enlisted, changed that with his stamp and opened a new chapter in the history of both countries. The term “Australasian Corps” had been dismissed by New Zealand troops. The military relied on acronyms and something had to be
“
for further excellent and most gallant work connected with the repair of telephone lines both by day and by night under heavy fire,” read his citation for the Victoria Cross in The London Gazette on October 15, 1915. Three days after Bassett won the Empire’s highest award for bravery, Chunuk Bair was lost when reinforcements ran out. A year after the first landing, on April 25, 1916, New Zealand was still reeling from the loss of so many of its sons but the country began the tradition of remembering its war dead. In recent years, young Australasians have increasingly flocked to the dawn Anzac Day service held as the sun rises at the time closest to the first landings at Anzac Cove.
Wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.
done to speed up the process for registering correspondence and easily identify the Australians and New Zealanders. Little was the clerk most likely to have come up with the acronym Anzac in December 1914, taking the initial letters of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and using them on his stamp. Within a month or so it had become the telegraphic code word for the Australian and New Zealand soldiers. The small beach where the Australians and New Zealanders landed is still known as Anzac Cove. and has become the focal point for thousands of New Zealanders and Australians who make an annual April pilgrimage. The campaign took a terrible human toll on the small New Zealand population, which hovered around one million at the outbreak of the war. Of the 8556 New Zealand soldiers who served on the Gallipoli Peninsula, 2721 died. Many of their bodies have never been found or identified. Nearly 1700 lie in unknown graves on the land they fought desperately to take and which was just as
MISTAKEN IDENTITY: This, one of the most famous paintings of Englishman and Australian army enlister John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey, by New Zealand artist Horace Moore-Jones, was actually taken from a photograph of New Zealand medic Dick Henderson. MooreJones, also a Gallipoli veteran, thought the photograph was of Simpson.
desperately defended by “Johnny Turk” — the Turkish soldiers who won the respect of the Anzacs for their tenacity and bravery. The 26,000 Australian casualties included 8000 dead. Mustafa Kemal commanded the Turkish forces on Gallipoli and later became the founder of modern Turkey, earning the title Ataturk (the father of Turks). He exhorted his troops to throw the Anzacs off Gallipoli with inspiring words: “I am not asking you to attack. I am asking you to die.” During the eight-month campaign, more than 86,000 Turks died defending Gallipoli before the Allied forces withdrew in December. The overall Turkish casualty figures were believed to be 250,000. The bond between the Anzacs and the Turks was further strengthened when Ataturk as president of
Turkey, delivered the following message to the mothers of all the dead New Zealand and Australian soldiers:. “Wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.” The legend of the Anzac fighting spirit was rewarded with only one Victoria Cross for the New Zealand contingent on Gallipoli. Corporal Cyril Bassett was 23 when he landed with the first wave of New Zealand troops on April 25, 1915. Four months later on August 7, as the New Zealanders precariously defended a ridge known as Chunuk Bair, Bassett laid a telephone line to the new position in broad daylight and under heavy fire from the Turks. “He has subsequently been brought to notice
Deserter goes from Zero to Hero John Simpson Kirkpatrick lasted only 24 days at Gallipoli before he was killed by Turkish machine gun fire on May 19, 1915. He was 22. Kirkpatrick had enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces in August under the name John Simpson, hoping to get back to England. He believed that if he used his surname Kirkpatrick, the authorities would realise he was a navy deserter who’d joined the navy in England in 1909 and then jumped ship in Newcastle (Australia) in 1910. Instead of going to England when he enlisted, Kirkpatrick went to Egypt with the 3rd Field Ambulance, Australian Army Medical Corp, and landed at Gallipoli on April 25. When he and his donkey began carrying wounded Anzacs down the hill to the casualty clearing stations, he became respected and revered by Anzac soldiers. The pair brought more than 300 wounded down the hill, seemingly invincible to the Turkish machine gun fire, snipers and shrapnel. One of the most asked questions among the Anzac troops was: “Has that bloke with the donk stopped one yet?” The donkey was given a posthumous award in 1997 — the RSPCA’s Purple Cross — for its bravery . The irony, say his supporters, is that Simpson never won military honours for his bravery although he was recommended for the Victoria Cross the month after he died and again in 1967. As a boy, John Simpson Kirkpatrick, one of eight children, had a summer holiday job working with donkeys at the English seaside town of South Shields, near Newcastle.
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Friday, April 24, 2015
Northern Advocate
GALLIPOLI 1915-2015 - lest we forget The plan was to mount a British-led naval expedition to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula on the western shore of the Dardanelles. A combined military-naval campaign would then seize Constantinople and force Turkey out of the war, easing pressure on ally Russia Gallipoli: Ottoman 5th Army HQ
BLACK SEA
T U R K E Y SEA OF MARMARA
Dardanelles Strait
Constantinople (Istanbul)
T U R K E Y 0
Ottoman divisions
5
AEGEAN SEA
Six divisions of 5th Army – 84,000 men – under German General Liman von Sanders including 19th Division led by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)
Anafarta Sagir Hill W
Salt Lake
April 25: Two ANZAC divisions
Evacuated Dec 19-20
OTTOMAN DEFENCE
Tekke Tepe
Gaba Tepe
Front line – Early May
Biyuk Anafarta
Hill 971 Hill Q Chunuk Bair
Evacuated Dec 19-20
ANZAC August 3: COVE One division
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GALLIPOLI PENINSULA
Mar 13: Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener gives order to invade 1 Apr 25: ANZAC battalions make dawn landing, Kiretch capturing objective Tepe Hill 10 Hill 971
ALLIED LANDINGS SUVLA August 6: BAY Seven divisions
5
Forts
Feb 19-Mar 18, 1915: Naval attack abandoned after three battleships sunk and three heavily damaged Mar 11: General Sir Ian Hamilton appointed commander of Mediterranean Expeditionary Force – British Royal Marines, 29th Division, Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and French Corps – to capture Dardanelles
1
Nek Lone Pine Ridge
19
Nagara Point
Maidos
Allies land on wrong beach, repelled by Mustafa Kemal, mired in trench warfare
INNER DEFENCES
Dardanelles virtually undefended Çanakkale beyond Nagara Point
2 Apr 25: KILID BAIR British 29th Front line – August PLATEAU Division lands Turks retain hold on but suffers Achi Baba heights of Chunuk Bair INTERMEDIATE heavy losses DEFENCES and Tekke Tepe NARROWS 3 Apr 25: Feb-Mar naval Front line – May French land on attempt fails to Krithia Allies attempt to Asian side of penetrate Narrows 9 capture Krithia 4 Dardanelles to DARDANELLES Anti-submarine nets divert Turkish fire STRAIT Minebelts away from Cape Helles landing beaches CAPE HELLES 2 4 Apr 28-May 24: April 25: OUTER Hamilton orders advance 12 battalions Sedd-el-Bair iles 5m DEFENCES to take village of Krithia. 8km Evacuated Jan 9 Despite three battles, with heavy casualties, no ground KUMKALE is gained by either side April 25: 3 3 May 25: Royal Navy French Corps 11 retreats after German submarine sinks three ships 5 Aug 6-21: Final Allied Dead Injured assault to capture ridges 86,692 164,617 Gallipoli holds Turkey between Kiretch Tepe, Nov 22: Kitchener visits 21,255 52,230 special significance Britain Tekke Tepe and Hill W fails for Australia and battlefield – agrees to after counter attack led 14,000 17,000 New Zealand as the first France evacuate by Kemal 8,709 19,441 major conflict for the Australia Dec 19-20: Evacuation Oct 31: New MEF New Zealand 2,721 4,852 two fledgling nations, of Suvla and Anzac commander General while for Turkey it marked 1,358 3,421 the reawakening of Sir Charles Monro Jan 2-9: Final evacuation India recommends evacuation 93 nationhood 49 Canada of Helles Sources: Imperial War Museum, Commonwealth Dept of Veteran Affairs
Pictures: Library of Congress, Mamara.net
© GRAPHIC NEWS
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Friday, April 24, 2015
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