0:00:02 > 0:00:03BBCFour Collections -
0:00:03 > 0:00:07specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09For this collection, Max Hastings has
0:00:09 > 0:00:14selected interviews with Great War veterans filmed in the 1960s.
0:00:14 > 0:00:15More programmes on this theme
0:00:15 > 0:00:20and other BBC Four Collections are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:51 > 0:00:57Well, I was one of about 2,000 blokes stuck in the Galeka.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02We left Moudros after nightfall on the 24th
0:01:02 > 0:01:07and we were all camped down in the bowels of the ship.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10The crew brought us some hot tucker to get on with,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14but I don't think any of us felt like eating.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17And then somebody said, "Well, you'd better have a snore off -
0:01:17 > 0:01:20"you've got a job to do in the morning."
0:01:20 > 0:01:24But we couldn't sleep, but we just talked about anything
0:01:24 > 0:01:26but the job we were going to do.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30And we pulled in, I should think,
0:01:30 > 0:01:33abouta quarter to six.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36The Majestic was just behind us.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40The 3rd Brigade had got on,
0:01:40 > 0:01:45and it was pretty obvious that OldJoe Burke knew they were there
0:01:45 > 0:01:47because there was plenty of firing,
0:01:47 > 0:01:52and evidently he'd got some field guns and they were dropping
0:01:52 > 0:01:54quite a bit of shrapnel.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58We lined up on the Galeka
0:01:58 > 0:02:03and waited for the pinnaces and the tows to come back
0:02:03 > 0:02:06and aswe were lined up, the oldboatswain of the Galeka
0:02:06 > 0:02:10camealong and said,"Anybody got any letters to post?
0:02:11 > 0:02:16"Anybody got any of those dirty postcards that you bought in Cairo?
0:02:16 > 0:02:18"If you have, you'd better put them down on the deck
0:02:18 > 0:02:23"because if you get knocked, they send them to your next of kin!"
0:02:23 > 0:02:27Well, by this time I was feeling just about as brave
0:02:27 > 0:02:31as a ring-tailed possum.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34And I wished that I was anywhere but on the Galeka.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38Anyhow, the boats eventually pulled alongside.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42We were all done up like sore toes with rifles and shovels
0:02:42 > 0:02:45and ammunition and packs
0:02:45 > 0:02:49and how we got down those rope ladders, I just don't know.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53What with the nervousness and the excitement
0:02:53 > 0:02:57and not knowing what was in front of us,
0:02:57 > 0:02:59I just felt washed out.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02But as I got into the boat, the firstthing that struck me
0:03:02 > 0:03:06was about three chaps of the 9thBattalion
0:03:06 > 0:03:08who had been killed
0:03:08 > 0:03:10and they hadn't had time to lift them out.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15So we had to walk gingerly over these fellows.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18And then I heard the voice of the little middy that was pulling
0:03:18 > 0:03:20these three boats.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23It was a child's voice, really.
0:03:23 > 0:03:25And I thought, "Well, if it's good enough for him,
0:03:25 > 0:03:27"it's good enough for me."
0:03:27 > 0:03:32And we packed in, the cobbers of us together, and the shrapnel
0:03:32 > 0:03:36was falling, the machine guns werepelting and as the pinnace
0:03:36 > 0:03:41hit the shore, we boats at the back were pulled up into anything
0:03:41 > 0:03:44three, four foot of water, somebody said, "Out you get!"
0:03:44 > 0:03:45and out we got...
0:03:47 > 0:03:50..lumbering this shovel and rifle
0:03:50 > 0:03:52and pack and ammunition.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55As I say, we wereloaded like blessed elephants.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59There were dead and wounded of the 3rd Brigade all around
0:03:59 > 0:04:04and we scampered as hard as we could to a little bit of shelter,
0:04:04 > 0:04:08dumpedour packs and dumped the shovels andthe picks,
0:04:08 > 0:04:10we'd had enough of those.
0:04:10 > 0:04:11And then somebody said,
0:04:11 > 0:04:16"Well, up you go" andaway we went up the slope.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18It wasn't too bad,
0:04:18 > 0:04:22but just halfwayup somebody shouted out to me,
0:04:22 > 0:04:24"Alan Cordon's stopped one."
0:04:24 > 0:04:29Well, Alan was one of my best pals and that made me feel a bitbetter,
0:04:29 > 0:04:33because if they'd got him, I felt, "I'm going to get THEM."
0:04:34 > 0:04:39Anyhow, we got to the top and the 3rdBrigade had done a good job.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41He'd pushed them back quite a bit.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44And we were extending out to theright,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47along the Gabe Tepe front.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51And... It was scrub country.
0:04:51 > 0:04:56Quite flat, but plenty of tea tree bush about.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59And we'd go about 20 or 30 yards
0:04:59 > 0:05:05and then we'd be held up by rifle fireand machine gun fire.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09But we got down and pitched into them.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12Eventually they ran and we went on and on.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15But eventually, we came to a post where
0:05:15 > 0:05:18obviously one of the strong points that he'd put up
0:05:18 > 0:05:23and I suppose there was about 20 of us in my group.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26Nobody in charge.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28The bloke with the loudest voice seemed to take
0:05:28 > 0:05:30charge of the setting.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34And three or four blokes gotknocked.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38And then I heard somebody say, "Well, this is no good to us!
0:05:38 > 0:05:41"Come on, heads down, arses up and get stuck into it."
0:05:41 > 0:05:44And we went into it.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48And we cleared them, bayoneted them, shot them, and the others ran.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52And we sort of dug in on that post for a little while.
0:05:52 > 0:05:57And a little while afterwards a bloke out of the
0:05:57 > 0:06:028th Battalion said, "Here, look at that bloody bush, it's moving!"
0:06:02 > 0:06:06And we looked at it and it was obviously a sniper.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11He was a sniper and he was done up like a Christmas tree.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15He'd got branches out of his head, out of his shoulders
0:06:15 > 0:06:19and he was for all the world like a bush.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23But he didn't look like a bush when we'd finished with him.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25Well, we went on and on.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28And I say, we kept getting held up,
0:06:28 > 0:06:31firing back when they were firing.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35Then somebody said... We'd got the impression that we'd have got right
0:06:35 > 0:06:39through if we'd have had plenty of support coming with us,
0:06:39 > 0:06:42but then somebody said we'd got to goback,
0:06:42 > 0:06:44and by this time Old Joe Burke
0:06:44 > 0:06:49had got plenty of reinforcements and he was making it a bit sticky.
0:06:49 > 0:06:54We got back to the first ridge and we started to dig in.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58There was no co-ordinated effort about it.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01We were just a crowd of diggers,
0:07:01 > 0:07:05working with each other, trusting each other blind.
0:07:05 > 0:07:10And after we'd been digging a little while,
0:07:10 > 0:07:14the Queen Elizabeth let go twoor three of her shells,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18and the sound of those shells was a real tonic.
0:07:18 > 0:07:23One bloke shouted out, "Share that amongst you, you bastards!"
0:07:24 > 0:07:29And the bloke next to me was Robbie Robinson,
0:07:29 > 0:07:31a corporal in my battalion.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36He was laughing at the remark that this digger hadmade
0:07:36 > 0:07:40about sharing these Queen Elizabeth shells.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42And I can see him now,
0:07:42 > 0:07:45grinning all over his face
0:07:45 > 0:07:49and the next thing I remember was his head fell on my shoulder
0:07:49 > 0:07:52and a sniper had got him through the jugular vein.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55And I really think that that was my baptism
0:07:55 > 0:08:00because Robbie's blood spentall over my tunic.
0:08:01 > 0:08:05Well, it was fairly obvious that the position
0:08:05 > 0:08:11we held on that first night was just about as slender as it could be.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15And I'm quite sure that not any one of us
0:08:15 > 0:08:18ever saw a possibility of getting off alive.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25For my point, I think I'd have run as hard as I could.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29But the fact that my cobbers were there,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32and they were ready to help me,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35kept me there, because,
0:08:35 > 0:08:41you know, in the diggers we just trusted each other blind.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46And while one bloke stood there, he could bet his sweet life
0:08:46 > 0:08:49that the other mate wasgoing to be with him.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52And if we went, we'd all go together.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58Well, having dug in, there was only one thing to do,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01was to stop where we'd dug in.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03If he'd come at us and been successful,
0:09:03 > 0:09:06he could've got us back into the sea.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10And all during the night there wasplenty of shrapnel
0:09:10 > 0:09:14and machine guns, snipers as busy as they could be.
0:09:14 > 0:09:19But we lived through and at about nine o'clock the next day
0:09:19 > 0:09:23we could see that he was bringing up plenty of stuff to have a go
0:09:23 > 0:09:26and I think he'd made up his mind to thump us.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30And, oh, somewhere about half pastnine,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34I should think, in themorning, we could hear him shoutingAllah,
0:09:34 > 0:09:38and blowing trumpets and things like that,
0:09:38 > 0:09:43and there was quitea lot of heavy firing,
0:09:43 > 0:09:47and plentyfrom us, and he, as far as I know,he hit the dais,
0:09:47 > 0:09:52and then the RoyalNaval Division came on to relieve us
0:09:52 > 0:09:55from the front line, as it were.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59Oh, there...and there was another thing, on the night of the 25th,
0:09:59 > 0:10:04they brought up some Indian Mountain Batteries, I think they called them.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08Well, they could only dig in about 20 yards behind where we were
0:10:09 > 0:10:12because if they'd dug any farther down they'd have been shooting
0:10:12 > 0:10:14into the hillside.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18And having got their guns in, they joined in the general shelling
0:10:18 > 0:10:22and bombardment, and they were firing what they called grapeshot.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25Well, this was shrapnel that evidently burst the moment
0:10:26 > 0:10:29it left the gun muzzle.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33And blimey, we had to scatter each time those batteries went.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35Well, and then on the 28th, as I say,
0:10:36 > 0:10:41the Royal Naval Division came and we were evacuated from the line
0:10:41 > 0:10:45into these little humpies just on the sandhills.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47And it was then, for the first time since the landing,
0:10:47 > 0:10:50that we'd beenable to look round for our cobbers.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53Because on the first day, we were just mixed up
0:10:53 > 0:10:55and running about like a lot of rabbits.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58Nobody could see who was who or what was what.
0:10:58 > 0:11:04And it was then, for the first time, we realised what the taking of
0:11:04 > 0:11:10Anzac Ridge had cost, because hardly any of our mates were left there.
0:11:10 > 0:11:14Well, we cooled off there for a day or two and one or two of us got
0:11:14 > 0:11:19into the sea and washed ourselves of the mud and that sort of thing.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23And then we were told we were going over to Cape Helles.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27That was my brigade, the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Battalion,
0:11:27 > 0:11:31to give the 29th Division a hand and then attack over there.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34And I remember they put us into all sorts of little boats
0:11:34 > 0:11:40and monitors, and the old Vicanti was our escort along.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43When we got over to Helles, we saw what a hell of a job
0:11:43 > 0:11:47the 29th division had had - barbed wire in the water.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50And my battalion actually landed on Helles
0:11:50 > 0:11:52through the River Clyde,
0:11:52 > 0:11:54which had been beached.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59And the story of theMunster and Dublin Fusiliers'
0:12:00 > 0:12:03effort off that boat everybody knows.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06Anyhow, they got us into a sort of a dried-up watercourse
0:12:06 > 0:12:10and we were told that we were going to take part in a general
0:12:10 > 0:12:14attack on the afternoon of the 8th.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18And just before the advance,
0:12:18 > 0:12:22the guns of the battleships,
0:12:22 > 0:12:27the artillery that we'd been able to get ashore and aroundand about
0:12:27 > 0:12:31putup a barrage, and I'vehonestly listened to several,
0:12:31 > 0:12:36but I can't ever remember a more concentrated or heavy barrage.
0:12:37 > 0:12:39Well, it was indescribable.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43The noise, the dust... You just couldn't hear each other speak.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46And that went on for about a quarter of an hour
0:12:46 > 0:12:49and then everything was as silent as the blessed grave.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52And that was the time when we had to hop out.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55And the barrage had been so heavy that we thought,
0:12:55 > 0:12:59"Well, this is going to be a cake walk, there's nothing to stop us."
0:12:59 > 0:13:02But the mistake we made was that after
0:13:02 > 0:13:07we got out of our hop-out trenches, our own artillery began to
0:13:07 > 0:13:10put down a barrage just in front of us.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12Some of it was firing short.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16You could see your mates going down right and left.
0:13:16 > 0:13:21And you were face-to-face with the stark realisation that this
0:13:21 > 0:13:24is the end of it.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26And that was the thought
0:13:26 > 0:13:30that waswith you the whole time,
0:13:30 > 0:13:34because despite the fact that we couldn't see a Turk,
0:13:34 > 0:13:37he was pelting us with everything he'd got from all corners,
0:13:38 > 0:13:42and the marvel to me is how the dickens he was able to do it
0:13:42 > 0:13:45afterthe barrage that had fallen on him.
0:13:45 > 0:13:51And sure enough, we got to within about a mile of Krithia village
0:13:51 > 0:13:54when I copped my packet.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57And as I lay down I said, "Thank Christ for that."
0:14:10 > 0:14:15Well, without doubt, Poziereswasthe heaviest,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18bloodiest,rottenest stunt
0:14:18 > 0:14:22that everthe Australians were caught up in.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24Er... It's...
0:14:24 > 0:14:26The carnage is just indescribable.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32And I can remember as we were making our attack after
0:14:32 > 0:14:34the 3rd Brigade had gone through,
0:14:34 > 0:14:38that we were literally walkingover the dead bodies of our cobbers
0:14:38 > 0:14:41that had been slain by this barrage.
0:14:41 > 0:14:43I can't imagine anything more...
0:14:45 > 0:14:50..concentrated thanthe artillery barrage of the Germans
0:14:50 > 0:14:53at that particular stunt.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57He was even shelling our front line
0:14:57 > 0:15:00with great coal boxes.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03And...
0:15:03 > 0:15:04I remember twice...
0:15:04 > 0:15:07I'msorry about the remember, you'll have to cut that out,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11the bay on our left went in, two or three chaps were killed,
0:15:11 > 0:15:14the bay on our right went in.
0:15:14 > 0:15:19I said to the chap whose knees I was sitting on, "It's our turn next."
0:15:19 > 0:15:22I hadn't said it before WE were buried.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24I was quite unconscious,
0:15:24 > 0:15:28but eventually a pick hit me on the shoulder.
0:15:28 > 0:15:35I was picked up and sent down to thebattalion first aid post.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38I think I was given a drop of salvolatile or something.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41I wish it had been rum.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45And I was sat in a corner at this aid post for a little while.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48But then the wounded just streamed inand the chap in charge of the
0:15:48 > 0:15:52post said, "Well, you've had enough, you'd better get back again."
0:15:52 > 0:15:57And I went back and during the whole of that period,
0:15:57 > 0:16:00I can't remember anything morenerve-racking than
0:16:01 > 0:16:04the continuous shelling,
0:16:04 > 0:16:07without stop, day and night.
0:16:07 > 0:16:12And the number of casualties that wesuffered there must have been
0:16:12 > 0:16:15greater than any other engagement in the war.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20We lived like wild animals.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25And each time we got into the forward area,
0:16:26 > 0:16:30every action of ours was a wild animal action.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34With the difficulties of getting supplies up, we scrounged,
0:16:34 > 0:16:37we robbed dead bodies to get food.
0:16:37 > 0:16:43And it was inevitable that wedeveloped the animal
0:16:43 > 0:16:45characteristic of killing.
0:16:45 > 0:16:50And apart from the short feeling of nervousness as you knew that
0:16:50 > 0:16:54you were moving up to carry out another operation,
0:16:54 > 0:16:58there wasa feeling of exultation that onceagain you were going to be
0:16:58 > 0:17:02able to, with rifle, bayonet and a couple of Mills bombs in yourpocket,
0:17:02 > 0:17:06to overcome any opposition that you ran into,
0:17:06 > 0:17:10and at the sametime, extract retribution
0:17:10 > 0:17:14from thefellows that had killed your mates.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19So many of them, that each time you were able to push another one
0:17:20 > 0:17:23out of it, you felt that you'd done something to compensate
0:17:23 > 0:17:27for the loss of these fellows that had become part of your very life.