British warships bombarding Turkish forts to protect the Allied landing
parties. The fire that was returned was both accurate and deadly.]
Of a sudden, the moon dipped and blinked out behind the cliffs. There
was a sigh of relief. “God bless that damned old moon.” A moment before
there had been just enough light to see the battleships coming on
slowly in the rear with the obvious purpose of covering the attack.
“Then you couldn’t see a blessed thing. The green waters had turned to
ink. You only knew your comrades were with you in the same boat by the
press of their swaying bodies against your shoulders and your ribs.”
They were within two hundred yards of the shore.
“Shouldn’t wonder,” whispered some one, “if we’re to surprise them
after all.”
“Then suddenly out of that weird darkness, that curious silence that
had been disturbed only by the rapid, half-choked panting of the steam
tugs, the surge of the water against the sides of the barges, the
whispers, the occasional smothered laughs—all soft sounds—there came
hell—veritable hell if ever hell comes to men on earth! And it came
with a tremendous roar!”
Captain Dave Fanlon was not an observer at the time. He was a
participant. He gives a most thrilling account of the ghastly landing:
“There was a swift, sharp lightening of the sky back of the gaunt,
black cliffs, and our boats seemed thrown out of the water, thrown up
into the air by the rocking thunder of the heavy guns of the Turkish
batteries behind those cliffs. The water that had been so smooth an
instant before, that was, in fact, so treacherously smooth, as had been
the silence, was stabbed and chopped and sent into wild spume by a
great rain of shells. Blinding blasts flared as suddenly, as here and
there a boat with its living load was struck and shattered. Screams and
hoarse, impulsive cries began to mingle with the explosions.”
The Turks had the range as surely as if they were only ten feet away
from the Australians. The English battleships began an angry, heavy
retort. Whether they found their mark among the Turks or not, it seemed
to make no difference. The enemy fire became more and more intense.
Boat after boat was being smashed. Scores and scores of men, unable to
swim, or weak swimmers, died right there.