The Battle for Chunuk Bair - The Auckland attack fails

“The Battalion was drawn up, 6th Company in front, and informed roughly of the objective. Many of them were survivors of the Daisy Patch, most of them had seen something of the work of machine-guns in the open against advancing troops. They had a complete and clear realisation of what was being asked of them. The moment came. The word was given. For an instant there was an intaking of the breath, a tension, the hesitation as of one who nerves himself to leap into ice-cold water. What? were the leaders baulking?”

“Twenty yards of dead ground, and then a hail of fire—fire from a thousand yards of Chunuk; fire from Battleship Hill; rifle fire and machine-gun fire from front and flank. Two hundred and fifty yards to go, and every yard of it raked with fire. There was no faltering; every man went straight forward, running up the hill as fast as he could go. Killed and wounded, they went down in heaps, but the survivors pressed on.”

“The task was done, and at a great cost. All the way back to the Apex the ground was a tangle of dead, dying and wounded. For most of them nothing could be done, as the ground was so terribly swept with fire. The men in front scraped a little cover, but it would have been impossible to dig in, even if picks and shovels had been available. No movement was safe, and to stand up meant certain death.”

““Hold on! Hold on!" If they could but hold on for a few hours longer surely the English would come from Suvla, and all would go on over the crest to Maidos.

The English did not come.” [Excerpt From: O. E. Burton. “The Auckland Regiment.”]

With the Auckland attack falling short, the Wellington Battalion was directed to continue the attack. Their commanding officer, Colonel William Malone, refused to sacrifice his men in another daylight advance. Orders were later received to renew the attack at 4.15am the following day.