Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 129]
[Text incorporates handwritten corrections by E.A.B.]
for the time being on August 21st. But all mention of the final efforts of this Division to achieve success, when all others had failed, has had to be suppressed up to the present because the mention of it would have involved the disclosure to the enemy of a strategical move which the General Staff considered it advisable to keep secret as long as possible.
But now the enemy is probably in possession of the names of all the units which took part in particular assaults on his positions both from the dead which have been left on the ground, from the publication of our Casualty Lists and from the information of his spies. On August 6th the 29th Division was holding its old position on the left of our line at Helles across the Gully Ravine the trenches captured from the great advance of nearly a mile made on June 28th.
An attempt was made to capture on the afternoon of Aug 6 a section of the enemy's line known as H.I2. which had long defied all efforts to take it. The 88th Brigade after an artillery bombardment delivered a most gallant assault over ground devoid of cover. Inspite of all efforts the attack did not succeed for the Turks dug in with their usual skill had suffered but little from the preliminary artillery preperation. The Hamp and Worcester Regts suffered severely. Whilst the landing at Suvla Bay and the great advance from Anzac were taking place the 29th Division held its ground and successfully repulsed several attacks of the Turks. When the attempts of the New Divisions to take the Anafarta Hills had feinitely failed on by August 10th there came an interval of ten days before our army could be reorganised and sufficient stores and ammunition landed to allow of a frontal attack on a grand scale on the positions we had failed to capture in the first surprise.
It was then decided to make a final effort to open up the road for the army and to cut the enemy's lines of communication by employing the Old Guard of the Army the famous 29th Division. Secretly, at night, the three Brigades were brought up in Trawlers from Helles to Suvla and landed without the Turks being aware of the movement. Personally I had no idea that had arrived on the new battlefield until I went out to Chocolate Hill on that eventful afternoon to take up