13- 15 May, 1915- Gallipoli

[christine liava'a]

On 13 May the NZ Mounteds were thrust into trenches on Walker's Ridge and Russell's Top to relieve the Naval Brigade...Their War Diary states "The stench in the trenches was very bad owing to the number of dead men lying unburied just outside the trenches. Best shots in the regiment were selected as snipers and posted in suitable positions to watch for enemy snipers....

on 14 May, under cover of thick fog, members of the Auckland Mounted Rifles holding the left trenches on Russell's Top managed to bury some NZ dead who were just outside their trenchlines.

The Mounteds suffered their first death on Gallipoli. Trooper Hay of the Canterburys was killed while burying Australians who had floated ashore near No 2 Outpost after being killed during the landings on 25 April...This was the start of a steady stream of wounded and killed for the Mounteds until their evacuation in November.

From midnight until 3 am on 15 May, the Turks kept up a terrific fire with rifles and machine guns on forward positions. And during the following night the Turks kept up a a heavy fire from their left flank. This new activity created anxiety amongst the NZers and Australians that a massive Turkish attack might be forthcoming while the NZ Infantry Brigade was still at Helles

Bloody Gallipoli- Richard Stowers

[stevew]

From all the info' I can collate, today is the 90th anniversary of the death of my Gt Gt uncle, Pte George Joseph Hester, 2nd Bn SWB, Killed in Action in Gallipoli.

Raising a glass to George in the early hours of the 15th May

[michaeldr]

Near Steele’s Post, 15th May 1915

“At about 9 am Bridges’ party [Major General William Throsby Bridges, his Chief of Staff, Lieut-Colonel Brudenell White and his aide-de-camp, Lieut Casey (a future Gov.- Gen. of Australia)] came into Monash Valley, where they met Major Glasgow, of the 1st Light Horse Regiment coming down. ‘Be careful of the next corner,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost five men there today.’

To the surprise of his staff officers Bridges actually ran between the barricades up the valley. Eventually they arrived at the traverse below Steele’s Post, behind which was the Aid Post of Capt. Thompson, RMO of the 1st Battalion. Here they stood talking for a while, Bridges enjoying a smoke. Then they decided to continue on. Bridges dived around the sandbag buttress, ‘his long legs disappearing in the scrub.’ Casey and White were preparing to follow when they heard a commotion. Someone had been hit. They dashed out, and together with Thompson saw the general lying behind a screen of bushes being tended to by a stretcher-bearer, who had dragged him there. Bridges had been shot through the thigh. Both the femoral artery and the vein had been severed, cutting off all blood supply to the leg. Casey and White were shocked at the sudden transformation they saw. In place of the ‘bronzed, healthy man that had been standing there a minute before,’ now lay a man stricken, and changed utterly.

‘Don’t carry me down – I don’t want any of our stretcher-bearers hit,’ were Bridges’ first words to Thompson as the doctor arrested the bleeding and dressed the wound. ‘Nonsense, sir,’ Thompson replied, ‘of course you’ve got to be carried down.’

Then, as Casey later told Sir Irving Benson, Simpson came on to the scene, leading his donkey. Casey had seen the donkey-man on numerous occasions, going about his work. Jack apparently made a friendly remark to the general as he lay on the ground. ‘You’ll be all right, Dig. I wish they’d let me take you down to the beach on my donkey.’

Bridges was carried down by a stretcher party. Immediately before they set off orders were given that all movement along the track, for about 100 yards, was to cease, alerting the enemy that it was a wounded man being carried down. Not a shot was fired at the stretcher party by the Turks.

It was only during the first two weeks of feverish fighting that no quarter was asked, or given, by either side. By the end of the third week attitudes were beginning to change. Now was the time for acts of chivalry, and acknowledging the Geneva Convention. The Turks had always respected the status of the hospital ship Gascon, which was never fired on, though well within range. It’s possible that the Turks had even begun to deliberately withhold their fire, on occasion, against stretcher-bearers. (Von Sanders had issued a strict order that the Red Cross was to be respected). Certainly after May 19th, and the altered attitude between the adversaries, such consideration towards the other side was a fact of life.

Bridges was taken from the Clearing Hospital out to the Gascon. Here the gravity of his wound was left in no doubt. With all the blood supply cut off to his leg, amputation at the thigh was the only option open to save his life. But in these days before blood transfusions (developed as a practical procedure in 1916) and the general’s age (he was 54), such an operation would invariably prove fatal. Colonels Howe and Ryan accompanied the general aboard the Gascon on its voyage to Egypt. The ship sailed on the 17th, by which time his wound had turned gangrenous. The following day Bridges died. His last words, to Ryan were, ‘Anyhow, I have commanded an Australian division for nine months.’ His body was brought back to Australia, and was buried on the hill overlooking Duntroon, the military college he had founded.”

from ‘Across the Bar’ by Tom Curran

......................................................

Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges KCB, CMG

Commanding Officer Australian Imperial Force and 1st Australian Division

Born: Greenock, Scotland 18th February 1861, the son of Captain Bridges RN. Educated at Ryde, Isle of White: Royal Naval School, Greenwich: (and when Captain Bridges retired from the RN and moved to Canada) the Canadian Military Collage at Kingston. After graduation he moved to Australia and in 1885 was appointed to the NSW’s Permanent Artillery. After he married, (Edith, the daughter of Alfred Dawson Francis) he was put in charge of the Middle Head forts, Sydney. He served in the South African War as a Major attached to the Artillery of the Cavalry Division, and was invalided home with typhoid. After the war he joined the HQ Staff and became Chief of Intelligence. He was responsible for the organising and formation of the Australian Imperial Force insisting that it should be a National Force and not dispersed amongst British units. This important decision fostered the national pride and characteristics of the Australian soldier, so evident in Gallipoli and thereafter. He was a firm, decisive and far-sighted leader, and took personal command of the 1st Australian Division through the training in Egypt, the landings on 25th April and the early fighting at Anzac. On the 15th May 1915, near Steele’s Post, he was mortally wounded by a bullet through his thigh. He was evacuated onto the Hospital ship ‘Gascon’ and died en route to Egypt. His body was taken to Australia for burial. Died of wounds 18th May 1915. Buried near the Military College at Duntroon (which he founded) Australia.

from ‘To What End Did They Die? Officers died at Gallipoli’ by R. W. Walker