Item 03: Frank Hurley war diary, 24 January-13 August 1918 - Page 31
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[Page 31]
Our withdrawal changed their tactics and gave the Turk breathing space to still further strengthen and entrench his position. The second, battle, which ended in a miserable fiasco with regrettable lose of life and heavy casualties was fought evidently without tactics or strategy.
This fortunately had the result of Murray being relieved of his command and General Allenby taking over. Our forces retired a little over 1½ miles from Gaza strongly entrenched themselves and wired the country off with miles of entanglements. Being now in a practically impregnable defensive position, the supreme command at once set about unravelling Murray's tangles and putting the entire force on a sound stable basis. New reinforcements were hurried up and the obsolete air service supplemented by new machines. Hitherto the enemy had the supremacy in the air and not only did they bomb vigorously