Stark reality of horrors to face Diggers
TODAY is Anzac Day, our national day of commemorations for those who inspired all of us who have served in their wake.
They had no idea, those young, idealistic men, what fate awaited them as they sailed d from Egypt towards a place most had never heard of, the Dardanelles.
They had even less idea why they were going there and for many it was a welcome diversion from the massive disciplinary charges they faced for their Easter misbehaviour in Cairo’s brothel district.
Never mind, it promised what they had enlisted to achieve, a chance to have a go at the Hun or the Turk who were threatening our remote way of life, or so they believed.
Most Australians now have no concept and less understanding of what those Diggers faced on that fatal morning 102 years ago.
Take Peta Credlin, for example, who wrote last weekend of her Gallipoli experiences accompanying her boss, then prime minister Tony Abbott to the centenary commemorations of that momentous landing.
“It’s a place that silences conversations as you try to comprehend the horror that awaited our young Diggers as they slipped quietly from their rowing boats in the dawn light,” she wrote. Pardon? Slipped quietly from their rowing boats? The Diggers were ferried ashore pre- dawn from their transports under a tremendous naval bombardment from their accompanying warships in lighters towed by small steam launches or whalers rowed by sailors, all commanded by beardless, teenage Royal Navy midshipmen.
Boys every one of them, they were in command of senior sailors and anxious Diggers who were in no doubt what faced them as the Turks, well aware of what was happening, rained murderous artillery and machine gun fire on to the seaborne invaders.
They hit the beaches between Queensland Point and Ari Burnu with their dead and dying mates beside them, facing even more murderous fire as they waded ashore.
The initial assault, mostly Queenslanders, were the covering force whose role was to seize the beachhead so later waves of troops could pass through and attack the heights.
They didn’t stop but stormed the heights above them, advancing well beyond what was expected of them.
They landed as dawn broke, on the Dardanelles western shore so that in front of them were the well- defended heights, where the Turks with the sun rising behind them could fire into the invaders at will as the attackers tried to fire up into a blinding, rising sun. When the main force including New Zealanders arrived later in the morning they were confronted with boats full of dead and more dead lined up on the beach, the waters of what is now known as Anzac Cove red with blood.
The surviving lighters which had carried them to the shore were returning to the supporting fleet full of wounded.
We pause today to remember them, but never, ever let anyone diminish for base political advantage what they tried to do or what they endured, nor tell a story different from what really occurred.