SCIMITAR HILL
the first authentic hotel on the Gallipoli peninsula
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back to silent witnesses
The attack (*) took place on August 21st , and in terms of
numbers was the greatest battle fought in the campaign. The 29th
Division advanced from a point near Chocolate Hill towards Scimitar Hill, the
11th Division attacked the W Hills, while a composite Anzac force
of 3,000 men under Cox attacked Hill 60. The offensive was timed for early
afternoon so that the men would advance with the sun behind them, but a
totally unexpected and unseasonable mist fell shortly after
noon, and the battle was fought in a veil of
swirling haze and stifling heat. By
4 p.m. the
main attack had been completely held up, and de Lisle ordered Peyton’s
Yeomanry to ‘push through’ to the objective.
They left the shelter of Lala Baba and marched across the
Salt Lake in
open formation, seven yards between each men. The light was beginning to fail,
but the Salt Lake silhouetted every man. The shrapnel began to burst over
them. When the remnants reached Chocolate Hill at about 6.30 p.m. they were
ordered forward blindly into the fearful gloom. It was almost dark when they
began to climb Scimitar Hill.
"Gallipoli”, Robert Rhodes James, p. 308-9
(*) battle
of scimitar hill
last updated : 20/08/07
“We thought it
was ridiculous to try again. One fellow said, I’m too bloody tired to go.” We
had to try and struggle. It was a fruitless thing. We were obeying orders-we
had to. It was not more frightening than any others, we were all afraid. You
must be when you are facing machineguns. We did try and make the attack (*) not
because we wanted to but because it was our job as soldiers. We were met by
withering machine-gun fire. I was hit and fell. They had to retire agian and I
was there between the lines in the blazing sun, I was hit at midday. I put my
field dressing on, I knew it hadn’t hit the artery or otherwise I would have
died – blood would have ben pumping out – and it missed the bone. I cut the
khaki drill off and my knee was exposed and it went black with the sun. What I
was afraid of was that the Turks had a habit of bayoneting the wounded and was
scared stiff. One of my old Sunday School Friends, Ernest Galloway, spotted
me. He’d been searching the place. I was very weak, I’d been out eight hours.
I said : “It’s through here”. He said : “I’ll stand you up”. Then I fainted
and he carried me three hundred yards, and I was ten to eleven stone, until he
found a stretcher. He put me on it and said : Bye Bye lad. I’ll see you again
sometime” He was killed...”
Corporal Ernest
Haire quoted in Defeat at Gallipoli, Nigel Steel & Peter Hart, p. 275
(*)
attack on Scimitar Hill on 10th August
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