Man of Iron by Jock Vennell

Author:Jock Vennell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2015-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

Now down to half strength, Malone’s battalion was still the strongest of the four New Zealand formations in the line. It was holding about 750 metres of trench with about 500 men, and the Turkish trenches were still 200 metres away across a gully. He and other front-line commanders knew that a further advance was hopeless until the enemy machine guns had been destroyed by shellfire.

Allied shellfire, however, had so far been ineffective, and in some cases was dropping closer to the New Zealand trenches than those of the enemy. Malone discovered that the advance of his West Coast company had been stopped by British shrapnel shells bursting right in front of them instead of on the enemy trenches.

After one such episode, the commander of a British battery got the rough edge of his tongue. ‘I went down and told them they were very rude, and that if they shot us up any more we should have to shoot back. We expect Turkish shells to annoy us but expect our own to go over and not into us.’

At the root of the problem was poor observation and lack of telephones to connect the artillery with the front line. The only solution, Malone decided, was to buy telephones himself out of regimental funds. ‘It will save many a life. I lost 3 orderlies out of 8 the other day carrying messages to the firing line—all for want of a phone.’

Despite the sniper risk, Malone reconnoitred the ground to the right of his position in an attempt to pinpoint the hidden Turkish machine guns. He found some 100 dead Turks lying face down where they had fallen, along with a number of British or New Zealanders who had been shot by snipers. As many as possible of them would be buried, he decided, once darkness had fallen. Meanwhile, his men were put to work cleaning the battlefield of tins, food scraps and general filth, and recovering the rifles, ammunition and equipment left by the dead. ‘A battlefield,’ he wrote in disgust, ‘is a much littered and untidy thing.’

On 11 May, Malone was ordered to relieve a British battalion which was some 1200 metres in his rear. He told Johnston that he could not do this without withdrawing men from the front trenches. He asked why the Otago Battalion, then in reserve, could not do the job. He was told that both the Auckland and Otago battalions had been shattered by the action on 8 May and were temporarily out of action. For the moment, his Wellington Battalion was the only fully functioning unit in the brigade.

In Malone’s mind, the heavy casualties sustained by both battalions were due to slack peacetime training, lack of discipline and poor leadership. ‘Poor devils,’ he wrote, ‘they are paying for their leaders’ faults.’ The lighter casualties of his battalion, he concluded, were the result of its better discipline. ‘I always thought the Wellington Btn [battalion] was easily the best in the Bde [brigade]. I now know that it is.

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