Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/9/1 - June 1915 - Part 4

lot in the early days; & Phillips always gets it hot bec. he is on top of 400 & fires on Quinns.  There is fortunately a bit of a false crest in front of him & also they cant see most o l shells wh burst behind him in l valley.  The found in front of him is simply pitted w shell - all small stuff but there must be a hundred holes at least - probably more.  The shield of one gun has a huge hole in it & I dont know how it survives.  Our runners are rather careless abt getting green stuff for their gun screens.  All these guns were covered with old brown shrubs & were l easiest thing in l world to pick out.  In l case of one of Jopps gun indeed l screen had partly fallen down & I saw boys were most obvious.

 

The enemy have been making a fine line of trenches on Kebu

Pine Ridge (I got a photo of these from the parapet).

 

See hand drawn diagram

 

The enemy are also sapping across (Imd of l gully betw. Popes & the N.Z. - so are we lower down.  They had a curious opening like a Sally Port at l head o l gully betw.  Popes & Quinns - a square hole open to us low down in l trench - cant make out what its for. They're also bn making a very wide road up at l head of one of these gullys

 

 

 and two emplacements.  I think we was from the Indian Battery observation post a telescope shining in one of these emplacements today.

 

The enemy ws also showing A lot of mounted officers in batches have also bn riding up to & away from a place far over to l back of Krithia Hill.  The monitor & a destroyer put a lot of shells in it today - Jopp was observing for the monitor tho' she fired off 5 rounds before she followed his direction & altered 150 yds or so.  The officers had gone away 1/2 hour before - but some came back.  Men cd be seen running out to take away the mules.

 

Caddy has altered his shooting at one Target - "C" I think - He adopted the plan - rather elementary I must say it seemed to me - of sending his Sergt. to another point & getting a second observation at an angle from his own.  He then found that he had prob. bn abt time abt 150 yds away from his target & to one side of it.  I wondered why he had not tried tt double observation before.  I thought they always did it.

By Phillips H.Q. on the hill - or rather near to l new 1st Bde H.Q. (2nd Bde has taken their old one) is an old Turkish trench & some of our trenches cut in l early days.  The T. trench is on the N. edge of 400 across a small gully from it, & faces down l gully.

 

Probably owing to the Turks having crawled up & cut l wire on a [xxx??] (the 3rd Bn & not 10 yds

 

 

away from it, we have not a set of trench standing orders giving a new system fro our trenches.  The chief point is tt a sentry group of 6 has to be responsible for every 12 yds of trench - & two always on duty - a spotter & sniper by day & two observers by night. The group on duty must always be ready.

 

Smith of the 12th has four lines of trenches now & puts one lot of men into each every day. (1) in l fire trench.  This lot will be Tomorrow (2) in l nearmost line getting absolute holiday..  They have to (3) do most of fatigues l next day & are in (4) the support on l [foly?] day - & so on.

 

The men have bn issued w instructions as to precautions agst gas but I dont know if l respirators have bn drawn or have arrived.  The instructions are a little childish it seems to me, for our men in the  obviously [??] by an anxiety to show tt it is fatal to run away & safest to stay or charge forward.

 

The aeroplane ws over today flying low & getting shot at.  Took 2 photos of her from Rosenthols H.Q. also photo of Parkers gun (Burgess Batty & the other gun near him - the graveyard at [Heb?] Spit, & on the hill by l pine near l first gun of Hughes butty; The Pine Ridge trenches (Turk - [yerty?] I got some photos of the 12th Bn trenches - almost invisible) and of a good day out on l rd behind the 12th)

The anafarta gun did not open till this evg when she blew up a mule to pieces in l next gully to us & killed several others.

 

Several o l batteries make use of an ingenious voice pipe - an iron pipe w tin funnel to work betw. bally & telephone stn.

 

The first tolerably rough days (with one exception) today &

yesty - & they say we are without water on l beach tonight.

xxx Donaldson cd get more when he went down, anyway.

xxx The pier is unfinished - one shell went v. near it &

the tressles are rather knocked abt by the tiny waves -

not l shell. The waves even so werent really approaching

roughness.

     Rather uneasy night (as usual) at Quinns.

     Bazley & I had an experience w flies in here

last night wh ws rather like delirium tremors.  We literally

fought them for 1/4 hour - waving towels, burning keatings

scattering them.  We must have killed one or two thousand

but only excited them.  They swarmed in our faces, crawled

all over us ( I suppose the keatings made them silly)

dropped off l ceiling onto l floor.  The place was filthy

with them this morning - nothing but dead flies.

We turned it out & swished it down with creasol &

it is comparatively free today.  But perh. the cooler

weather accts for that.  The men find the flies at

present far worse than the Turks.

     Was sniped at twice today whilst looking over

parapets.

     People in Australia, when 50 casualties were 

published, seen by the latest papers to have been

almost shocked.  We know that by then the list

was really 5000 for this Divn alone, & we

cant help wondering what they thought.  I am

hoping that J's wound ws announced to father &

mother in a comforting form - my cable may

have arrived first saying his wound ws not serious.

     It is rather cold tonight - 3.25 or I suppose 

by MEF time which we have to use now ∧ bec. the French unit 1525 - no, 

0325 of course.  The G.H.O. wd have these brainwaves & do

 

 

 such solid work as wheeling wounded men from dressing stns

to the beach or telephoning its orders for attack in reasonable time

we might be a little nearer Achi Baba.

     However - its 0325 & xxxxxxxx? it seems to be

flowing up for the storm which is overdue & the Hospital 

ship is out there very beautiful with her green stripes &

red cross brightly lit - & I am going to turn in.

     3.40 Day just breaking.  Good deal of firing at Quinns.

 

Wed. June 16 Centenary of Quatre Bras.  Casey tells

me that he ws in Brown's battery when the 8in shells

from Kojadere (or a little N of it) came in.  You cd see'then coming & see which way they were going to fall.

Kojadere

     The periscope rifle has been hitting the Turks up

a lot.  They know what it is bec. they can see it

over the parapet.  It seems to me a gt pity it ws even

used over l parapet.

     The gun at Anafarta has been giving the Beach

a heavy shelling ∧at intervals all day - & the K. Tepe gun has

been shelling it from the South.  For

some reason the Anafarta gun gets the

hospital almost every time after searching

the gullies.  We have no aeroplane & no

sea plane so I dont suppose we have

any chance of knocking these guns out.  The

Anafarta gun killed 2 & wounded 14 men on l 

beach today.

     The gun ridge guns, possibly 6 of them, gave

Hughes battery a heavy shelling.  The crew had just left

no 2 gun when she got a shell [??] & the shield wh

played old Harry with the sights & knocked them away

 

rendering the gun useless for l present until l sights

can be repaired.  I think our guns are very in adequately

hidden, but of course its difficult to find positions.

Trenchard thinks his 6in Howitzer knocked out one 

of their guns today on 971.

     Altogether they had 18 guns at work agst us today

(Col, Hobbs says-) of course its hard to place their number

bec. they have so many alternative positns.

There were 4 & prob, 6 on gun ridge.

     The small destroyer was giving the trench 

the N.Z. people lost a very heavy shelling today

 -blazing very fast w. her little long 12 pdr.  There

were Turks in it today & some men told me

they thought they saw a Turks body fly into 

the air.

     This evg two enterprises:  1:  Blowing up

a saphead at Quinns;  2:  raiding ∧of the double

trench by party of 9th helped by destroyer.

Destroyer turns on searchlight at 9.30 & fires

& we follow slowly on after the searchlight.  The men

are not to stop out - just clear l trench & come

back.  The Quinns business I think (by l noise)

took place at 9.30 when tremendous bombing &

rifle & m.g. fire.

     The Frenchmen had one of the Arafarta

shells in above their dug out today - a little

12 pdr or 15 pdr I shd say - with high explosive

or else percussion shrapnel.  We have no

high explosive ammunition for our 18 pds. wish

 

we had.  It has a nasty noise - that same crrrk!

that we noticed from the enemys big shrapnel falling

over l beach at Helles.

     Waterloo number o l "Dinkum Oil" ready.

Col. Smith is putting the fear of Heaven into the 

reinforcements - believes in knocking them down & then

slowly building them up.  It is the best way undoubtedly.

They come here with big ideas - they're not fit to

compare to the old [mena?] trained men; & the first

thing is to make them realise it.   They have a 

tremendous secret admiration for l old hands & are

just in l frame of mind when they can be knocked down

by a socking big load of hard drill to start off with.  Then,

when they are lamb like, they can be put on.

     I saw Smith choosing l corpl. for l waterguard?

yesty.  He put had to provide an N.C.O. & 4 men & l

question was - what N.C.O.   He pulled out a  man tt

had his testimonial for l job written on his face.

Who can we spare Kennedy?  he asked.  Must

be a trustworthy man but a man who -

well-er-whom we can spare from l trenches.

"How abt Corpl X?" sd Kennedy after a moments

thought,

     Smith called up Corpl. X to show me.  He was

exactly the man.  "You must not let them have an

ounce more than is their due, X" sd Smith. "You

must treat our own men exactly l same as those

of other Bns - You must give see tt l rules are

exactly kept" - "I see", sd X slowly & smiling w intense

 

 

satisfaction at his own intelligence - "I understand, Sir

tt if I do a favour - to - my - own - men - I - am

robbing - somebody - else".  "That's so", sd Col.

Smith nodding.  X saluted slowly & ceremoniously 

&, w intense pride beaming out of all the five

paralled wrinkles of his honest wooden old smile, went

turned formally about & strode away.

     I know now l sort of [manttly?] put on

fatigues.  Well - he'll do his job to l letter, that man.

 

Thurs June 17.  A little off colour.  ∧Maj. Bennett was down at

H.Q. & I got from him an a/c of what the 6th & 7th

did on the first two days.

     I hear the sally from the 9th yesty resulted in

nothing.  The Turks had cleared from the two trenches.

     We now have men sniping from the sand bay

traverses in Monash Gully; & from little tunnelled

chambers with small steel loopholes right out in 

front of Courtneys & 1st Bn.  The Turks  The latter look

right down the some Turkish communcn trenches - & the

Turks have practically ceased to use these by day

at all.  They Our men sit all day with a rifle on

certain points ready to plug.  If a Turk passes that

way now he does so running fast.

     As a result of all this the valley road is

almost safe again.  Little Jack Butler who came

down to see me today came tt way.

     There was a scatter amongst l destroyers

today & I hear tt l Canopus was sunk.  It is a beach

rumour but may quite well be true.

     Anafarta gun & K.Tepe contented? themselves

with ten minutes crossfire on the beach.  But I 

 

 

dont know how things were in l trenches.  They

have bn using high explosives lately & have blown

away whole bits of trench.  On l other hand they put

100 shells into a squa trench held [by?] on squadron

& only damaged one man.

     Some of the Triumples ward room wine was

washed ashore a day before yesty & several of the men

got away with some of it - consequence - two men

given 6 months each.

     Some fool in the 4th Bde has written to the

Australia a faked acct. of an action "in the desert"

on Mar. 10 in wh he is supposed to have taken part

in a bayonet charge.  The S.M.H. corresot. at

Maitland sent it down to them & they published

it.  Hanging would be the right punishment for

that chap.  I hope the other men give him what he is 

asking for.

     The Argus, special reporter - who must

be Charlie Smith I fancy - has published an article

attributing the pneumonia amongst the troops in 

Egypt to the fact tt l officers lived well whilst l men,

so he makes out, had to spend almost all their

money in making up for l starvation rations on 

wh they were kept.  It is a rather bitter, hopelessly

misleading article.  The food in Egypt was not

always good - there were defects, & the general

complaint tt l men did not get from ∧some of their contractors

anything like l value of the 6d a day wh they were 

allowed instead of butter etc had something in it.  The

officers men who went into Cairo spent a good part of

their money on meals there (& so did l officers) - & wd

have done so however they were fed at Mena.  The fault

w l rations ws not so much tt they were too small

 

     

for there ws enormous waste as every soldier there

knows - but tt the rations were badly apportioned

between the meals; they were issued once a day (the

only possible way w an army) and l cooks were

sometimes inclined to use them throw them all in at one

meal.  The consequence was a lot of waste after tt meal

& sometimes (by no means always or w many units)

a shortage of meat etc, at other meals.

     On l other hand to attribute ∧ l fatal pneumonia to this

as the sole main & sole cause is false in l extreme.  Some

rather bitter doctors has got at C. Smith & pulled his

leg a bit - As a matter of fact C.S. knew as well as

I did tt there were many some powerful causes of

xxx constitutional weakness w wh l feeding had

nothing whatever to do.  The officers were not perfect,

but it is rough on them to make them shoulder l blame

of this illness.  At l time when C.S.'s article appeared

there were abt 180 officers of our division alone lying

killed or wounded at Anzac.  If you asked their

 men straight whether this was a fair aspersion to cast

up at them they wd have given a very direct answer.

The cause of pneumonia amongst infantry ws

clearly the working in l desert at trench digging &

then resting afterwards in l cold desert breeze - the 

men marching under packs often also got a xxx

big patch of sweat on their backs where l pack

came.  They took off l pack when they halted - &

pneumonia ws l result.  I may say tt no one lived

in comfort or dined in luxury comparable to tt o l 

doctors at l two big hospitals.  The article is altogether

very misleading but has eno' truth in it to be very hard to [contred?]