This website has been prepared by
the first "hotel de charme" on the Gallipoli peninsula
By this time companies had become very mixed, and the charge was composed of a crowd of man belonging to all the companies, mad with the lust for battle. Their officers did little to restrain them, for their Irish blood was aflame, and they were as eager as the men. The line surged up the bare exposed glacis, only to encounter
Just before one of these
attacks a New Zealander was approached by his closest friend, who, white and
trembling, confined that he was afraid. The New Zealander, J.F. Rudd, did all
he could to comfort his friend but the latter was sure he was soon to be
killed. With final checking of ammunition and guns completed, “I can still
remember the feeling as we looked at our watches and saw the time creeping
nearer to five o’clock. The whistle went and out hopped the first row of men and they fell
like ninepins, then the second row went out and my friend
Jack Bindon’s
premonition was fulfilled”.
Trooper J.F. Rudd (CMR) quoted in
"Men of Gallipoli", Peter H. Liddle, p. 210
Russia.
All those powerful aspirations were gone. British thinking narrowed to the
capture of this totally insignificant, altogether worthless pimple on the
Gallipoli peninsula.
"Voices of Gallipoli", (Auckland 1988), Maurice Shadbolt, p.
120
"Humain remains collected on Hill 60 by the Imperial War Graves Commision team during 1919"
reproduced
from "Gallipoli
Then and Now", (London 2000), Steve Newman, p. 159.
Map detail reproduced from "Military Operations: Gallipoli", Volume II - maps &
appendices, (London 1929), Brigadier-General Cecil F. Aspinall-Oglander.
tremendously
heavy rifle and machine gun fire from the crest. At the same moment the
enemy’s guns opened, displaying marvellous accuracy in ranging, and the attack
was annihilated. In spite of this the men went on as long as they were
able to stand, and fell still facing the foe. From the wells below their
bodies could be seen, lying in ordered ranks on the hillside, with the bayonets
pointing to the front.
"The Tenth (Irish) Division",
(Dublin
1993),
Major Bryan Cooper, p. 108.
After the debacle of the August offensive, commanders began tidying house, straightening the lines, making maps look neater, and in the process became obsessed with the obscure Turkish elevation, hardly even a hill, but nevertheless known as Hill 60. By late August it was seen as an impediment to safe movement between Anzac Cove and the British positions established at Suvla Bay. But their was another motive for an assault on Hill 60. General Sir Ian Hamilton had just shocked Britain's politicians by calling for another hundred thousand men; he was in need of a success to report. But now the British high command seemed to have forgotten what the campaign was about -the seizing of the Dardanelles, the silencing of Turkey, the relieving of the pressure on
To the infantry waiting in the trenches on Damakjelik Bair it seemed that very few of the shells landed in the Turkish positions on Hill 60. Certainly the Turks, seeing the Suvla Bay advance, were alert and expecting an attack. As the New Zealanders charged forward they were met by intense, accurate Turkish Fire. Lt Gordon Harper noticed his sergeant,
George Ferguson, cracking jokes with the men as they waited for the artillery to lift. “His body was the first we had to jump over as we left the parapet. His South African ribbons were still on his breast”.
