ANZAC eve

April 24th.

 
 Diary entries



 Captain Percy Lay, 8th Battalion, from Ballan

April 23 : Practiced disembarking and our Colonel told us we were likely to get a lively time landing, within the next couple of days

April 24 : Got ready to move off and sailed in the afternoon and anchored just off Imbros Island. Everything is ready for the landing.


Albert Coates (later Sir), 7th Battalion, from Ballarat

April 24 : Things are moving this morning as we are told that we are to leave for the firing lines at 10am.  At 11am we leave Lemnos and pass many ships on our way out.  The "Queen Elizabeth" with her decks cleared for action is ready to move up the Bay to cover our landing.  There are 40 war boats in the bay ready to leave with us.  We reach the small bay near the mainland at 5pm and anchor there for the night.


Bandsman Harold Krutli, 14th Battalion (late of Maryborough, Victoria)

April 24 :  We left for the seat of war at 10 am.  It was a beautiful clear and calm morning and it was very hard to believe that one was going to what perhaps would be his last few days on this earth.

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The men this blog is following are from the 6th, 7th and 8th Battalions.  They are on the transports facing the Gallipoli Peninsula, and are as prepared as they can be for the dawn landings.  Except no one was prepared, on either side, for what came next.

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LEST WE FORGET

ANZAC 1915 - 2015

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Reuben Mitchell

When we last posted an entry about Reuben he was aboard the AE2 on his way to Alexandria as part of the second convoy. With the Dardanelles landings due to commence in a little over a weeks time it might be worthwhile to post another entry for Reuben to see what he has been doing up to this point of the war.  Reuben is on temporary transfer aboard the repair ship Penguin when the AE2 became the first allied submarine  to breech the Dardanelles Strait in April 1915.  On 30 April  the submarine  was scuttled off the coast of Turkey and her entire crew taken prisoner of war. As a result of this Reuben was transferred to serve aboard British submarines. In a letter sent home to his parents he mentions his transfer.

                                 'I left the submarine ten days before she left Malta, and came up here in a merchant ship, only to hear of her fate when I arrived. It was the first trip I have missed in her since she was commissioned , so I suppose I may consider myself lucky. I would have told you all about it in my last letter , but it had not been announced officially.' (extract taken from Dinkum Oil : letters published in the Ballarat Courier during the Great War. by A. M.Taylor, available in Australiana Research Room, Ballarat Library.)

 The Ballarat Courier also published another letter Reuben sent home describing life on board the submarine AE2   This letter, obviously written prior to the letter written above,  could quite possibly be the letter he mentions in the above extract. The letter is reproduced below. 

Ballarat Courier 14 April 1915 

 

ANZAC Centenary online

By chance this morning I heard on Radio National Breakfast a segment on the Australian submarine the AE2.  Troops landing on the beaches at Anzac Cove is the iconic image of the Gallipoli campaign, but there was also an underwater story. You can listen to the segment here : how the AE2 was the first submarine to penetrate the Dardanelles defences and eluded capture for almost a week.  

The Royal Australian Navy features the AE2 story, and there is also an AE2 Commemorative Foundation.  One of the servicemen of the Great War which this blog is following is A.S. Reuben Mitchell, who served on the AE2 and later the E14. We introduced him in our blog of 23 November 2014.

There are now many blogs, facebook pages and websites all concentrating on the ANZAC centenary and the men and women who took part in the Great War.  

Something that came to our attention today are two Facebook pages dedicated to former Ballarat citizens who went to the War - Sister Alice Ross-King, born in Ballarat but later of Melbourne, and Bert Reynolds, originally from Sebastopol.  These Facebook pages are entering diary entries making their posts part of #AnzacLive - try using that hashtag on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook for other interesting posts.

Another blog of interest is that of James Greenbank's ANZAC story  created by Carin Greenbank in honour of her great uncle, originally from Snake Valley.  Carin has created a wonderful blog, quite simple and short, and it's an example of what can be done with research results.  It can be an effort to produce a book but creating a blog or a Facebook page is an excellent and simple way to publish research. 

Happy online searching! There is so much to follow and read.  But if you'd prefer a book, we have a copy of Stoker's Submarine by Fred and Elizabeth Brenchley, in the Australiana Room.

An illustration by Simon Dance of the Dardanelles offensive, from Stoker's Submarine

Good Friday, 1915 - 'First Battle of the Wozzer'

Is that battle title unfamiliar?

On Good Friday, 1915, after the special Church Parade, the men were given leave to visit Cairo.  The time is drawing near for the troops to leave, and perhaps this is the last chance to visit.

There has been bitterness between some of the Australians and New Zealanders, and the Egyptians, for some time – relating to the bad drink served by local liquor traders, to a steep rise in price in the brothels, and by the many cases of venereal disease.  There was a crowd of soldiers in the brothel street of Haret el Wasser, and some of them decided to exact retribution for the insult and injury they believed they or their mates had incurred during the time the troops were in Cairo.

Percy Lay’s diary for April 2 notes  … there was a great row in Cairo. Someone set fire to the Waizizau. The best part of the place burnt to the ground. It ended up in a stoush between our chaps and the Red Caps [British Military Police]. Things were pretty lively while they lasted.

Sister Alice Kitchen was also in Cairo on that Good Friday.  She experienced some of the Wozzer disturbance, but also noticed something else: “the soldiers are now branded well by having stripes on their hats and sleeves. ‘Ours’ [the 8th battalion] red and white, others green and white, red and blue, blue and white…’ These are the colour patches, a new device to help distinguish the various units – the 8th Battalion’s colour patch White over Red instantly became known as ‘Blood and Bandages’.

Colour patch of the 8th Battalion, raised in country Victoria and including many Ballarat men

C.E.W. Bean, in his official history of the war, almost ignores the First Battle of the Wozzer, relegating it to a footnote, and concentrates instead on the momentous news just received in camp. The Australian Division was ordered to the front.

Percy Lay’s diary, April 3: Got word to say we were to leave for Alexandria and then embark for some unknown place where we were likely to have some fighting.

References for today’s blog – and further reading if you are interested in these events 100 years ago; all are available in the Australiana Research Room at Ballarat Library, and there are also lending copies in the main collection.

Adam-Smith, Patsy   The ANZACs

Austin, R.  Cobbers in khaki; the history of the 8th battalion 1914-1918

Bean, C.E.W.  Official history of Australia in the war of 1914-1918 Vol. 1, the story of ANZAC

Turner, J.L. (ed.)   The war diaries of Captain Percy Lay (1914-1919)