Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/24/1 - December 1915 - Part 3

Sketch - see original document.

Holes in
Bow of
R Clyde.
19
Before getting into Helles
we ran into an anti-submarine
net - big wire mesh perh. 6 feet
in diameter held up by glass 
clusters of glass buoys
cased in tow cord - rather
like a chianti flagon.
We caught our 

We steamed along gaily with

the net trailing alongside
w its line of buoys like
a big sea serpent
until the skipper
saw it.   By that 
time it was well
tangled up in / 
screw.  We had to
heave to & back
slowly out &
chop a length
out o / net
before we cd get
clear, Then
we cast the
remain
(wh operatn
/ skipper
performed
himself by hammering
it w a big cold
chisel against
/ side.  Then we
cast / remainder o / net in two
fragments overboard again, leaving

[*T. Plans
[shorthand]
Cant get above to
Sampson [shorthand]
Our [shorthand] in July
[shorthand] Tenedos
T shrapnel near our men
esp of late.
Some at Anz. Suvla Hill. Ejelmer
We move [shorthand] at RND
[shorthand] Anzac
We are losing men & I
1st claim them though.
Ts now bombing Helles a lot
& strafing.
[shorthand]
We cant land at Anz
They can at Chanak
One of our men did land in Turkey
Burnt his plane, shot bombs
& ws picked up.
2.3 wings RNAS 1 in [shorthand]

Anz [shorthand]

Hibernia, Russell*]

20
/ shorter end to drift abt by itself
& get in / way of whoever passed.
A drifter w a naval crew saw us -
and her officer shouted something thro' a
megaphone, so I suppose / net
will be duly looked after.

We passed / ruined piers &
breakwater of W. Beach (Lancashire
Landing) the British harbour - &
steamed round towards V. Beach.
Here the As we were passing under
/ cliffs by / aerodrome a big
aeroplane w / French colours
(British planes wear / French
colours too so I dont know wh
she really was) seemed to be
landing but to have failed to make
/ last turn inland at / last moment.
She alighted not far from / edge o /
cliff & came running towards it. 
Ones heart jumped into ones
mouth as the machine came
bumping along towards / cliff.
There ws a telegraph line in
front of her & she caught it
w her two right planes & brought

Drawing - see original document.
What used to be 
seen o / Majestic -
her stem w a lamp
placed on it

21

down a pole. Fortunately this
stopped her.  We saw a man get
out so presumed quite unconcerned as / population
came running up (you wdnt
think / cliff side contained so many

people).

We turned to have a look at
the old battleship wh / French
have sunk of to make part of
their breakwater (the Massena,
without masts or funnels or top
hamper) - the Majestic by the
bye has disappeared altogether.
I suppose she was rusting on her
superstructure & one o / S.W. storms
crushed it to pieces altogether. 

At this moment a Taube or
rather an Aviatik Biplane or D.W. 
F. (or D.F.W.) came over - flying
low eno' for you to see the black crosses
quite easily w / naked eye.  There
were two of our planes up & a
third soon joined them.  One
sailed along parallel w / German
& we cd hear the shots in / sky -
a loud rapid m.g. fire of about
15 shots, & isolated single shots.  The 

I was very surprised to see tt
though / German came very fairly
low not a single puff of shrapnel
appeared in / sky.  It seems tt we
actually have no efficient anti-
aircraft gun at Helles - only
3 little 3 pdrs mounted by the RND
at their H.Q.  Yet at Imbros we
have an excellent gun, & possibly
more, firing v. quickly.

22
single shots were, I afterwds heard, from
One of our planes dipped rapidly away from /
^German & swerved off, but came up to it again
quickly & finally followed it off
sailing parallel, at some distance,
towards Tenedos.
======
I heard afterwds tt / single shots
were from our planes & / m.g. fire
from / German.  Our m.g (Vickers)
for some reason - probably / cold -
will not fire more than single
shots. The Germans have what is
probably a Mauser pistol of sorts -
wh can be fired at any angle;  &
they have been giving our planes
a real bad time of late.  It is generally
only one German who comes over
at a time, but he is a bold flier -
And ever since our men think it
is one particular man.

The Turks have bn watching / Helles
beaches like cats watch a mouse since
our evacuation.  They sent over
2 or 3 planes yesterday - low down;
every day an airman comes over
to look for signs of evacuation.  The
guns from Asia have been shelling / 
beaches persistently - they are not as

23
deadly as Beachy - who rarely put
in a days work without doing a 
good deal of harm owing to /

narrowness of Anzac beach;  but they
make things very uncomfortable.
Annie was throwing shell over from
Asia when we landed & again in /
afternoon when I came off.  I never
saw any effect but I believe she
killed a couple of men yesty - I
think they told me so. 

The French (& by all / signs / 
French are going to evacuate very soon
- their place to be taken I imagine by
/ British -) have put in a wonderful
amt. of work at Helles.  Their harbour
is far better than ours; they have a
mole leading out to / River Clyde - well
[Sketch - see original scan] 
built of stone
and even, in
part, of the broken
breech & carriage &
/ old castaway shells
of an 11 inch gun - Old
shells with [shorthand] driving bombs
- you see them clearly under
/ water.  The French have enormous
stores of fodder on / shore.  Of
course they have reduced from   

24
two divisions to one.  I am told that their
ammunition arrangements and out 
foresight in provision of stores, laying out
quays, & necessary departments are far
better than ours - some of our own staff have
told me so. 

Lawrence & I went on board the
River Clyde to leave our gear his bed &
kit - Wilson, the M.L.O there, insisted
on pouring us out very stiff whiskies -
& afterwds, in spite of all protests,
opened a bottle of champagne.
I noticed that 2 Frenchmen whom
I saw on the pier, one after the other,
took up most of the ^breadth of the pier in their
attempts to walk along it - that is
to say, they werent falling about but
they were noticeably irregular as
far as direction ws concerned. 
I don't know that L. & I can very
well cavil at them.  As When we left
the Clyde to walk to the Gully Ravine
(wh. I had never seen) we were both
of us very glad that we had a long
walk before we came to the H.Q. of
the Manchester Bde (127^th) - Gen.

Elliott.

The River Clyde had partly bn given
up, now, to the French for offices.  But
Jones the N.T.O. still lives on board.  He
is an R.N.R man (and therefore
naturally the right man for the
beach work; but being R.N.R. he seems
to get no promotion tho' he ws on W
Beach during the worst o / work.  And
when they wanted an expert to supervise
landing of and beachwork at Suvla
they chose an R.N. man &, I believe,
promoted him. 

but we had some very nice tinned
pheasant. This Bdier really treated
us most hospitably - as kindly and
openly ∧as any Australian staff could have done.

25
The British have been cutting a
road up the Gully Ravine, just in time
to judge by / awful state o / bottom of it.
They did not feel the blizzard as
severely as we did - they are very
sheltered from / North.  They have done
no deep digging at all of the sort we
did at Anzac.  But they have been
tunnelling very energetically under /
Turkish line & are going to blow
the T. up in a day or two.  They sd they
cd have taken ^without any loss tt trench wh they
took on Dec. 19, if they had had
another day or two. 

We had our Xmas lunch w /
Gen. & staff of 127th Divn. & of -
their Bde had celebrated Xmas
a few days before, when it ws out
o / trenches. (The 52nd Divn appeared
to be out today - & one of the
medical units ws having some

sports). The One o / staff took Lawrence &
me up to the trenches from wh we  where he personally
relieved the New Zealanders who

Sketch - see original document.

26
held a line which he described
to me
on 
the 
spot
as above.  We stood at .X. which was
the end of the trench dug by / N.Z.
left when he took it over. The
other New Zealanders were behind
them & apparently not yet in touch
although N Z dead were where I have
put the crosses x x x . The Manchester
Bde. staff sd tt / N.Z. people had run
over concealed T. machine guns in
the Daisy Field (of the position of 
which they werent quite certain).
They sd the m.gs. shut down ^a lid when
the N.Z.s came up to them & N.Z.
went over them without seeing them.

27
This is in Ian Hamiltons despatches
but I have never heard any N.Z.
officer mention it - tho' it is just
possible tt it ws discovered only
after N.Z. went away.

I had to get back to Imbros
on account of the Anzac Magazine -
So I left Lawrence at 3 & walked
right down the gully to its mouth
& then thro' the reserve camp of
52nd Divn (on a slightly reverse
slope  ) well up within fire of any
sort of shell) & so to the French Beach.
The Turks were firing a shell with
a big black smoke into our trenches.
We gave them (from 3 to 3.30 or
thereabouts) a very vigorous
strafe for Xmas day - at
Anzac we shd have called it
a tremendous bombardment,

28
but then we knew very little
abt bombardments at Anzac.
And yet here - tho' they used their
guns so much - they had no
anti aircraft runs except 3 miserable
little 3 pdrs at the H.Q. o / the
R.N.D.

The trawler turned up from 
Tenedos (her round nowadays)
abt 5.  Had my Xmas dinner
at home at abt 8. Had with a very
nice mince pie provided for
us by / boys (they had got /
bakery to cook it two for them.)

Had a yarn to James on
/ way back - a curious
sleepy English youth of some
education, Lawrence's
batman.  He sd it ws / most
miserable Xmas he had ever
spent - &, poor chap, I daresay