Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/232/1 - Folder - Part 5

23d.

Diagram - see original 

Near Leanes Tr. (where marked)
is the grave of ^2/Lieut Hassan
Taxin Effendi 48^th Reg^t
2^nd Battn 3 Coy Killed 19 May 1915
Diagram - see original 

SKETCH A∼F
Diagram - see original 

SKETCH A∼G 
View North from North end

of Leanes Trench.

23e
Diagram - see original 

SKETCH A∼H RIGHT 

Junction of Trenches South of

Leanes Tr. with Chathams Post.
Diagram - see original 
 SKETCH A∼H(Left)
Diagram - see original

SKETCH A∼J
Our southern limit 

from Turk position

Diagram - see original 

SKETCH A∼K

Anzac from the trench

which shut us off.
Diagram - see original 

SKETCH A∼L 

24.
26/2/19. Silt Spur - Leane's - ChathaM's - Echelon Trenches.
See F.B. - sketched notes at each point.
Bones in washaway which I thought were in front of
Leane's trench are clearly 19 May, being much N of
Leane's trench.
Leane's looks over several steep washaways. The
forked C.T.'s enclosing the bay held by Turks is a
washaway - or leads from one.
Chathams: The position where Turks put up a
sandbag redoubt about Nov. 2 had been abandoned and wire
put in their half-dug C.T. by us.
xxx  Diagram - see original

Balkan Gun Pits were 4 (or 6) pits, grassed, 
apparently pointing towards Gaba Tepe or Olive Grove.
They are on the inland side of the crest. The remains
of an old camp (ledge and old trench) of one or two
tents, grassed over, is there.
Turks have made a new trench along thw whole length
of the Ridge Top facing the sea - and some deep dugouts
with a deep pit on Bolton's Ridge (S end of it).
xxx Diagram- see original

On Pine Ridge on the way back saw what looked like
remains of a battery - skulls of dead horses and men.
The reverse slope of Pine Ridge is very gentle. The
pines have been cut down on all sides.
Well down the slope towards Legge Valley were the
bones and tunic of an Australian.
 __________
February 26: Sketches AA to AL.
February 27th.
Visited Gaba Tepe with Zeki Bey, Buchanan, Lambert,
Wilkins, Balfour and James.
Found in general 2 lines of wire - one up the
hillside below the trenches; one at the bottom of the
hill. The wire on the beach I didn't see - but Rogers
says that it is still there buried in the sand.
There is a new trench all along the hilltop,
probably where the old one was - but deepened. There
are two short lengths of trench below this on knuckles
near the end of the promontory. There were no other
old trenches on the fore (N) side.
The only real ravine is near the eastern end. There
is a deep washaway almost like a quarry - and by
description this (X) is no doubt the place where a gun
fired from.
(See sketch next page).

Diagram - see original

SKETCH A∼M. 

Diagram - see original
 SKETCH A∼N  FROM 100yds EAST OF POINT OF GABA TEPE  

25.
27/2/19.
xxx Diagram - see original
There is the felloe of an old whell lying there - and
two skulls which seemed to be those of horses. It looks
as if the gun was hit on the occasion when thehit was
claimed.
We could find no old gun emplacements on Gaba Tepe.
The deep diggings in the centre of the promontory are
later; and there are two battery positions on the neck:
xxx Diagram - see original
Possibly these cover some of the old emplacements. There
were two diggings at (?) and (?), but they were not, I
think, battery positions.
Very little sign on Gaba Tepe of all the shelling.
The landing of our men was at the west end of the
beach - almost opposite the main cleft in the hill. You
could still see the pozzies they had dug. (A O). There
were a couple of messtins there but I don't thin know if
these were not brought there later. One of them was very
close to the landing place xxxxxx and another right by it.
The wire here ran within a few yards of the edge of
the bank. A messtin and a few traces of kit were found
about 10 yards up the hill - but it is uncertain if they
were left there at the landing. One messtin was found
almost on the spot.
The O.P. for Beachy Bill was of course at Gaba Tepe.
I got a sketch of the parts of Anzac which could be
seen from there ( A N - left). The contours of Gaba
Tepe are shown in A M.
We made over the lower end of Gun Ridge, which
sweeps round just behind Gaba Tepe in several low easy
folds - no gun positions there. The ground (Wilkins
photographed it to show the nature of the place we
should have operated in) was something like low desert
scrub with shingly patches in between thelow shrubs
(much like salt-bush country.
Zeki Bey was impressed by the fact that if
disciplined regular troops (as he said) had landed there,
without the great difficulties of the Anzac country,
they might have got far enough ahead, and quick enough,
to get across the Turkish communications to Chunuk Bair.
But even so - to carry the whole of the day's plans
would have been most difficult for a division even in
peace time, - he said.
The Asmak Dere has a surprisingly deep bed. From
there a gentle slope leads up to a xxxxxxxxxx crest-line
which runs about 700 yards (I should say) south of Asmak
Dere. The top of it is trenched; an from the top of
this again you look across a gentle wide valley about
2 miles (I should say) to the foot of Kilid Bahr plateau.
Immediately behind the crestline (averaging about
200 yards down it), near the Maidos road, are the
positions of 8 big guns, as shown in A Q (1 & 2). 

Diagram - see original 
SKETCH^. A∼O
Diagram - see original 
SKETCH^. A∼P 

View from Bachy's O.P.

for 15 cm guns 

Diagram - see original 
SKETCH ^.A^.Q¹

Right flank Beachy Bill.
Diagram - see original 
SKETCH^.AQ²        

 26.
27/2/19. The grave marked with an asterisk in AQ2 is that of a
corporal in a 15 c.m. howitzer battery, killed in 1915.
(Rogers considers that 4 of the gun emplacements are
since the campaign and 4 earlier). There is an O.P.
or two on the top of the ridge. The view from that on
the right-front of the battery (100 yards from the guns)
is given in A P.
There were very few shellholes near these guns; but
the Turks had apparently collected the bases of some 12-in.
shell, and nose caps also. The epaulments were made up
very high with sandbags. I noticed no direct hits on
emplacements oodugouts as far as one could see.
We were inclined to take these as being the whole of
the Beachy emplacements. However, as there were two old
6-in. guns certainly in addition to these, I rode off to-
wards Kilid Bahr plateau to find them. I found none
there. There was a sunken xxxx waggon road going round
the NW corner of the hill towards Helles.
On coming back I noticed a number of old trenches
and diggings further west than those we had seen. These
proved to be batteries. Some had been built since. I
took the bearings of these but these were very loose and
Rogers is to go off to place them tomorrow. The
battery on the extreme left had had a few shells near it.
There were no trees around it. There was brushwood on
the epaulments and 4 ft. of the left epaulment of the 2nd
gun from the left, and 2 ft. of the right epaulment
could be seen from the position of Burgess's guns. They
would look like this:
xxx Diagram - see original 

Riding home, between this and the other battery, I
found about 16 emplacements.
xxx Diagram - see original 
In a gully something like this, on the way home, I
suddenly ran into a regular shell crater area - almost
like an area in France - quite dangerous to canter through.
February 28th. Zeki Bey returned to-day.
In the afternoon Balfour and I took out about half a
dozen men to go over the hills which Balfour had searched
in the morning, viz., the slope leading up from behind
our camp to Scrubby Knoll; and the slopes back from
Scrubby Knoll between the ridge and Mortar Ridge. Balf our
had found an Australian tunic complete and a fired
cartridge on the slope (in a gully) about 68 d.2.  I
previously found a puttee at 68 d. intersection of 2 - 6 xx
and 5 - 3 (just on the shoulder of the hill).