Item 03: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett telegrams, 1915 - Page 194

[Page 194]

[Telegram form – The Eastern Telegraph Company, Limited. Alexandria Station. Dated 3 Sept. 1915. 307 words]
[Continuation of Ashmead Bartlet's report on the second combined British/Anzac operations at Suvla Bay and Lone Pine, 21st August]
Daily Telegraph London R.T.P.

Cable six section ten stop But the men of Dorset Bucks Wilts Warwick and London moving as if on parade pressed steadily on loosing many but never wavering and formed up behind the [censor's deletion] infantry Brigade in front of hill seventy stop it was now six o'clock and once more the crest was furiously bombarded by every available gun whilst the Turkish batteries concentrated on our trenches stop the scene was majestic but awful for the light was rapidly waning and the whole horizon almost blotted out with enormous clouds of smoke and flames as the trees scrub homesteads and very grass burnt furiously at a dozen different points whilst the noise of the guns and the incessant and never ceasing roar from thousands of rifles rendered the scene a perfect inferno stop
a little after six [censor's deletion - the South Wales Borderers] a battalion went forward and seized the southern slopes of the hill and began to dig themselves in preparatory to a further advance against the top stop at this point the shell fire seemed to begin to tell on the Turks for many of them could be seen streaming from the northern knoll of the hill down the trench line either because it had become untenable or they were preparing to meet the advance of [censor's deletion] our men stop for about an hour there was no change in the situation and then the Yeomanry again moved forward in a solid mass forming up under the lower western and northern slopes stop it was now almost dark and the attack seemed to hang fire when suddenly the Yeomanry lept to their feet and as a single man charged right up the hill stop They were met by a withering fire which rose to a crescendo as they neared the northern crest but nothing could stop them
ashmead bartlett / Capt Maxwell Censor