Chunuk Bair
The terrain was a rough strip of beach backed by range upon range of unforgiving mountains, on which many men thousands of miles from home would die. In truth the Turks had barely bothering defending the area, as it was almost impossible to imagine anyone trying to attack from this direction. But the ANZACs went where they were sent.
25th April 1915 the attack began, and as soon as the allied forces had entrenched themselves in the peninsula, the long hard struggle against the Turks began. It must have seemed exciting at first, but when the fighting reduced down to trench warfare, it was a struggle just to stay alive and sane. Anyone putting their head up was likely to be shot by snipers, the rations were mainly a barely nutritional bully beef, when summer came there was a maddening plague of flies bought on by the unburied dead, and there was a constant lack of enough shells and bullets. It would be another eight months before the obvious became clear, the allies could not win here, and the order to withdraw was given.
In that time, there would be acts of compassion, cruelty and bravery. For New Zealand the greatest of these was Chunuk Bair.
The Wellington Infantry Regiment was commanded by Captain William Malone, who at fifty six was the oldest soldier in his unit, but also one of the most capable. He was a farmer from Taranaki, but his practical nature and strict discipline had been making an effect on the New Zealand forces since they had arrived in Gallipoli. He wanted his regiment to be the best, and though he didn't make any friends among them for driving them so hard, but he must have thought it was their only hope.
Chunuk Bair is an uncompromising ridge of stone rising 860 feet above the beach, if the regiment could take it, they could command the vital Dardenelle straight. On 8th August, Malone led his regiment to the top of Chunuk Bair with very little resistance from the Turks. The 7th Gloucesters and the Wellingtons dug in, but it was not a good position. They were unsupported, on a ridge just below Turkish emplacements, and yet they did not retreat. With one machine gun that they had cobbled together from four wrecked ones, they held on doggedly under heavy fire.
At midday some members of the Auckland Battalion managed to get forward
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