9 and 10 - August - Unit Diary

9 August 1915

On 9 August , the Brigade unit diary reported the front line was 'too thinly manned to hold at night without supports close at hand'.

With this thin line of troops in the front trenches, the heavy pre-dawn Turkish rifle fire commenced just after 4am. Later that morning the 2nd Brigade suffered again from 28 shells in an hour. This compounded the effects of the huge barrage of shells on 8 August fired mainly from Mortar Ridge.

A fatigue party was set up to deal with the shell-damaged trenches in the 2nd Brigade area. These men were led by Lt. Harper and included 88 newly arrived re-inforcements of the 20th Battalion.

At about 9am, Australian howitzers fired into the Turkish trenches in front of Lone Pine and the enemy withdrew from these positions.

At about 10am in the morning further shelling was fired into 2nd Brigade trenches and this time from a different Turkish position called 'Olive Grove'.

The 5th Battalion (included Athol's group in Company B) were moved into the Lone Pine trenches at 11:42am. At this point they became attached to 1st Brigade. The 7th Battalion were moved out of the Lone Pine trenches as they were 'suffering severely from bombs'.

That night there was heavy fire from all enemy trenches.

10 August 1915

Athol was now under the direction of the 1st Brigade at Lone Pine.  The system for manning those front line trenches involved the 3rd Battalion relieving the 5th Battalion at 8am and then two days later the 5th Battalion would take over from the 3rd Battalion. This pattern continued into early September.

In these Lone Pine trenches the orders were for the men to keep overhead cover as far as possible where they would be safer from bombs thrown by the Turks at night and shells by day. The short distance from the Turks lines meant that bomb throwing was particularly effective for both sides. The Australians were warned that their bombs had short fuses and needed to be thrown quickly after being lit (see image of Bomb factory below). If the enemy were to attack the Lone Pine trenches with a large numbers of bomb throwers, our men were ordered to respond with the bayonette.

The trenches behind Lone Pine were still being manned by the 2nd Brigade. On 10 August the 2nd Brigade reported further shelling at 8:30am; Guns opened fire with shells coming from the new direction of Olive Grove. Some of these shells reached the Brigade Headquarters. There was another bout of shelling at 9:30am. Again the Southern No2 section was pounded by shelling for about half-an-hour from mid-day.

The afternoon was 'quiet'.

That evening the Turks opened up with more intense rifle fire from all enemy trenches. This occurred from about 9:30 that evening for about 20 minutes and then it opened up on Chunuk Bair further along the line to the north.

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This level and type of activity continues day after day according to the Unit Diary. On 12 August the diary notes 'day average'. I suppose we really have no idea of what 'average' meant in August 1915 on the Gallipoli peninsular.

The Bomb Makers - Gallipoli 1915

AWM image G00267

The Turks had a large supply or small easily-handled bombs and they were skilled in tossing them. The Anzacs had come ashore without any kind of 'bomb' so a 'bomb factory' was established near the beach. This image shows Australians making bombs by stuffing old jam tins with pieces of Turkish shell and barbed wire. Bean wrote of Lone Pine battle:

The Australians ... were learning that bombs were the most powerful weapon for hand-to-hand fighting, and that - though they knew little of bomb-throwing and mistrusted the crude 'jam tins' - if they could obtain a constant supply they could keep back the Turks.

[Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, Vol II, Sydney, 1924, p.539]