Beneath Hill 60 Page 4

  Soon after, the Germans fired another mine at Zwarteleen, the village bordering Hill 60. Their surveying was poor, and the mine did as much damage to the German trenches as to the British, but it affected British morale and the men became jumpy.

  And this pattern – one step forward, two steps back – continued after the successful mining operation at Hill 60 on 17 April. Within a short time, the British success took on the smell of a British blunder. Though the hill had been recaptured, it now protruded into the German frontline, and like all dangerous salients, it was directly in the line of concentrated enfilading fire from both flanks. No sooner had the shattered Germans recovered from the explosion of the mines than they began a relentless fire into the exposed new British positions, raking the trenches and parapets with shot and shell. As the firestorm ended, the British lined their trenches, huddled below the shattered sandbags that ran along their parapets, to await the anticipated German counterattack.

  The Germans, in well-rehearsed style, pushed back against a British line bristling with rifles and machine guns. Between 17 and 21 April there was a relentless to-and-fro battle for this churned patch of mud, scooped out by mining and sown with the bodies of the dead. Charles Bean, Australia’s official First World War historian, would later describe it as ‘a rubbish heap’ in which it was ‘impossible to dig without disturbing a body’.6

  On 22 April, a heavy bombardment of Ypres by the Germans with 17-inch shells heralded the start of the Second Battle of Ypres. The French still retained responsibility for the front in a section of the line to the northeast of Ypres, near St Juliaan, and troops from the colony of Algeria had recently arrived there. Late in the afternoon, as men shuffled into position ready for the dusk ‘stand to’, there appeared a yellow-green mist moving slowly and low to the ground. Initially thought to be a smokescreen for the German infantry attack, on the spring breeze it drifted into the frontline trenches.

  For a moment the Algerians smelt pepper – no, it was pineapple – and felt a burning sensation in their throats and pain in their chest. Quickly this strange, nauseating smoke overtook them and they threw down their weapons, leapt from their trenches and ran screaming to the rear. They were the first victims of a new and frightening weapon: chlorine gas.

  A six-kilometre gap suddenly appeared in the Allied line. Even the Germans were surprised by the success of their gas experiment. If they had actually exploited the break in the Allied line, they could have created a serious breach and potentially a catastrophic collapse along the whole front. Instead, the newly arrived Canadian Division quickly replaced the French colonials and, although also gassed, they held the line. Some of the gas also drifted southwest and was blown across the fatigued British troops on Hill 60. By this time, it had lost its potency, but the experience was enough to give them a sense of the dangers to come.

  On 4 May, almost two weeks later, the exhausted men holding the crest of Hill 60 were woken by a sentry who noticed an ominous cloud drifting up from the German lines. ‘Gas! Gas!’ he shouted. As the men rushed to the parapet, they could clearly hear the audible hiss of the gas as it left its canisters. Quickly they started to choke and vomit as the gas mixed with water in their lungs and converted to hydrochloric acid, stinging and burning their throat, chest and lungs. Light exposure to the gas would cause vomiting and irritate their eyes; moderate exposure would cause damage to the lungs and possibly pneumonia later; and a few deep breaths of a high dose would be lethal.

  There had been no gas masks when the first chlorine gas attack occurred in April 1915. At first, temporary pads were fashioned on the battlefield, the earliest often soaked in urine to neutralise the acidic chlorine gas. Some men used socks, handkerchiefs and flannel belts, which they soaked in a solution of bicarbonate of soda and tied across their faces when the gas gong was sounded or gas was seen approaching the trenches. It was difficult to fight with such rudimentary masks, so effective gas masks and anti-asphyxiation respirators were developed by the British and were on general issue by July 1915. The Germans then developed phosgene gas and mustard gas, which caused damage even to soldiers wearing gas masks as they burnt not only the throat and lungs but also any exposed skin.

  At Hill 60 in May 1915 the cost to the British was great: 90 died and a further 58 succumbed to gas poisoning at a nearby dressing station. Hundreds more were retching and vomiting a strange green slime as they clawed at their throats and gasped for air. Others wandered off to the rear, struggling alone in search of stretcher-bearers or a Casualty Clearing Station, but there was little, if anything, the medical staff could do.

  Within 15 minutes, Hill 60 was back in German hands.

  While the British had already learnt from circumstances in France and Belgium that they needed to take the war underground, in April 1915 the Australians were just beginning their own painful lessons. After training in Cairo and landing on Gallipoli, the Australians quickly became bogged down. The Turks contained the Allied forces to the steep slopes above the beach, and stalemate, much like that on the Western Front, set in.

  In the days after the landing, AIF field companies – specialist engineer units – dug artillery positions, trenches, the beginnings of two roads and wells, organised beach defences and started the first dugouts into the hillsides that were to prove so important in the months ahead. Because of the danger of snipers on the high ground above the beach, the Allied trench system quickly had to increase in sophistication. The frontline was pushed forward by building ‘saps’: trenches dug towards the enemy, from which lateral trenches branch off to form a new frontline. Once forward, a new parapet could be built. ‘Looped’ firing positions were constructed: a small hole between sandbags, or steel plates with holes through which snipers could fire their rifles with protection.

  As the tunnels moved forward, it was found that there was no need for timber supports or revetting as the earth was dense alluvial compacted sand, similar to sandstone, which was very stable yet easy to dig. This was fortunate as there was very little available timber on the peninsula. Although the tunnels did not require supports, progress was slow, with only a metre or so being completed over a 24-hour period.

  Initially, the idea of offensive mining was not even considered. Then reports came in of sounds of digging beneath Quinn’s Post. New Zealand engineers dug three shafts and established listening posts. The Australians of the 15th and 16th Battalions who were stationed at Quinn’s Post included many miners.

  These big, staunch fellows, though genial and often humorous, were hard-grained men accustomed to form their own opinions and not afraid to express them. In spite of the confidence of the authorities, some of these men took their own precautions. So it was that on May 17th, a man of the 15th, by the name of Slack … distinctly heard the steady, persistent, muffled knocking of the enemy’s picks. Slack summoned his CSM, Williams, and CO, Sampson. Both heard the sound and it was duly reported.1

  The Australians dug a tunnel towards the Turkish positions and blew a camouflet. The next day, further Turkish activity was heard. This time, members of the New Zealand Field Company fired a camouflet.

  The Turks, keen to drive the invaders back into the sea, had realised the value of mining. Unlike the Australians, though, they did not have a mining industry from which to recruit experienced men. They seemed not to worry about being heard, and the 13th Battalion history notes that even during a thunderstorm they ‘could hear the Turks digging under Quinn’s’.2 The history goes on to say: ‘We counter-sapped for all we were worth to meet the Turk underground and at 2.30 pm on the 28th May, we blew his sap in.’3

  Their work did not stop the Turkish mining. On the following day, the Turks exploded a mine beneath Quinn’s Post, and all the Australians in this part of the line were killed or wounded. The Turks followed up with an assault but, after savage fighting, the Australians beat back the attack. Thirteen Australians were killed and 81 wounded, and Turkish casualties were estimated to be more than 300. This was the beginning of the offen
sive tunnelling that would dominate Allied and Turkish operations until the end of the year.

  After a number of futile frontal attacks against well-sited Turkish positions, the British had realised that they only had two options if they were to break out: open a new front and go around the flanks of the Turks, something they would try at Suvla Bay, or dig under and crack the Turkish line by breaking through from beneath. Within a month of landing, the AIF field companies had begun to focus on tunnelling, and this would become their most important function until the evacuation in December 1915.

  The Anzac Corps commander, Lieutenant General Birdwood, ordered that men with mining experience be released from their battalions to form specialist mining units.4 These units were sent to the frontline at Quinn’s, Courtney and Pope’s Posts to begin offensive tunnelling. Many of the men had worked as miners in places such as Kalgoorlie, Broken Hill, Cobar, far north Queensland around Charters Towers, and the goldfields to the northwest of Cairns. This gave them a clear advantage over their Turkish enemy. ‘As far as defensive and offensive mining was concerned, the supremacy of the Anzac miners was almost complete,’ wrote Charles Bean. ‘Whenever the enemy were heard tunnelling, they simply waited till the sound came from a few feet, and then blew in his workings.’5

  Bean’s description of Slack, the man who raised the alarm over Turkish digging under Quinn’s Post, paints a picture of the kind of men who formed these early mining units. A 45-year-old railway ganger, Corporal Slack ‘was a tall, sinewy fellow, older than most, with the humorous, kindly wrinkles of a typical miner and had constantly refused promotion in the AIF. He had mined all over Australia, and of late had managed a small Tasmanian tin “show”.’6

  The Australians invented a system of driving underground tunnels forward instead of open saps. Transverse tunnels extended out to each side, very close to the surface. When an attack was to be launched, the roofs of these tunnels were removed, leaving an open trench ready for use. This meant assaults could be launched much closer to the Turkish trenches, minimising the time men spent charging across no-man’s-land. This became so successful that the commander of the 1st Australian Division ordered that tunnelling rather than sapping was to be the accepted practice all along the front.

  On 24 June 1915, the Australians fired their first offensive mine, and a further five mines were blown in the days after.7 ‘The Anzac miners began to have a marked effect upon the Turkish tunnellers who were reported to be in a state of semi-panic,’ wrote Bean.8 In late July the Turks blew a mine only 12 metres from their own trench, sending their barbed wire flying into the air. A couple of days later, Australian engineers digging towards Lone Pine waited until ‘the Turks came within five feet of them, and then fired a countermine, the Turkish picks being heard until the moment of the explosion’.9

  The Turks were aware of the aggressive scale of the Allies’ tunnelling. It is believed they had been informed by a spy in Egypt who had probably heard about the tunnelling from the wounded returned to hospital there.10 In response, Turkish Command had issued an order to begin defensive mining in all areas where the frontlines were close. At Lone Pine, the Turks were not aware of the exact location of the tunnels, but they did notice that a great deal of digging was in progress. A Turkish commander commented after the war: ‘Every day when I looked at the English lines and saw always mound upon mound of new earth rising, I said to myself, “What can these English be doing? I shall certainly wake someday and find that they have tunnelled to Constantinople.”’11

  It was decided to land a British force to the north of Anzac Cove at Suvla Bay and for the Australians to undertake a major feint attack along their front. Apart from some small gains, this proved unsuccessful, as did the landing at Suvla, and so from August there was little heavy fighting above ground.12

  The stalemated situation emphasised the need for Australia to develop its own specialist tunnelling units, similar to Griffiths’ clay kickers who had formed companies attached to the Royal Engineers in France and Belgium.

  The idea was championed by two men, Tannatt William Edgeworth David, and Ernest Willington Skeats. Before the war, Sydney University professor Edgeworth David was already well known as an academic, an Antarctic explorer and a geologist. He had come to Sydney from Wales in 1882 to take up an appointment for the state government as the Assistant Geological Surveyor. In 1907–08, he accompanied Ernest Shackleton and Douglas Mawson to the Antarctic, where he led an expedition up Mount Erebus and attempted to reach the South Pole. By the outbreak of the war, Edgeworth David was the head of the university’s geology department; he was influential, highly regarded around the world and well connected politically, involving himself in recruiting rallies and the raising of patriotic funds.

  Joining the army as a major in October 1915, Edgeworth David was the geologist attached to the Tunnelling Battalion and left for Europe on the same ship as Woodward in February 1916. His job as a military geologist was to give advice on the location of ground water and the siting and design of trenches and tunnels.

  Ernest Skeats was the head of the geology department at Melbourne University. In August 1915, he and David suggested to the Minister of Defence, Senator George Pearce, that a specialist mining and tunnelling unit be formed. More formal than the ad hoc mining companies already formed at Gallipoli, it would be independent of the army and made up of Australian miners. In September 1915, the prime minister offered Britain 1000 expert miners and mining engineers, plus equipment, for service in the Dardanelles or elsewhere. The British government gladly accepted the offer, asking that the men be provided in the form of tunnelling units.

  Within a week, more than 50 miners had volunteered at Broken Hill, and others were standing by awaiting details of enlistment. The Defence Department decided to establish a mining battalion headquartered in Victoria, comprising three companies: one made up of miners from New South Wales, the second of miners from Victoria and South Australia, and the third miners from Queensland and Western Australia. This was a different structure to that adopted by the English and Canadians, who had set up numerous tunnelling companies that were independent of each other and not part of an overall battalion.

  The AIF’s upper age limit, at that time 38 years, was extended to 50 years.13 To be commissioned, prospective officers needed to be experienced mining engineers or managers, or to be mining surveyors with experience underground. Non-commissioned officers and sappers were to be men ‘experienced in underground work as foremen, shift bosses, face men, tunnellers, carpenters and blacksmiths’.14 Such men already serving in the AIF were allowed to transfer into the new battalion. Australia quickly began seeking men with vision and experience in mining to form the three tunnelling companies.

  Oliver Woodward’s moment had come.

  In the year since he had returned to Australia to work at the mine at Mount Morgan, Oliver Woodward had continued to feel conflicted about his role in the war. Though copper was desperately needed for the war effort and his contribution to mining was more crucial than if he had become a foot soldier in the first days of the war, it played on his mind that all around him men were enlisting to serve overseas.

  It was Gallipoli that changed everything for Woodward. Suddenly, Australian men were giving their lives in their thousands, showing enormous courage in appalling and treacherous conditions. The AIF’s fighting men had proven themselves, and it was now clear that Australia’s expected role of ‘garrison duty in Egypt’ had been replaced by a far heavier burden.

  ‘Following the glorious landing of the Anzacs at Gallipoli and the publication of the first casualty list, it seemed that the time had arrived when selfish personal interests should be cast aside and when service to one’s Country became of prime importance,’ Woodward wrote.1 But the real turning point came when he received a telegram on 21 August 1915 to say that his cousin, Major Moffat Reid, had died on Gallipoli. ‘This sad news turned the scale in my desire to enlist and without delay I told the General Manager of the company, Mr
. Boyd, my intention.’2 Boyd was sympathetic, as his son had lost an arm at Gallipoli, and so Woodward’s employment was terminated on 9 September.

  A week later, Woodward left for Tenterfield to spend time with his family. Then he took the train to Sydney and did four weeks’ training at a rifle club. These clubs were not run by the army but were certainly encouraged by them as they prepared men for the military by giving them basic training such as drill with weapons and musketry practice. In October, he signed up at Victoria Barracks. ‘Until I finally enlisted I was never happy or contented,’ he wrote.

  [It] probably caused a wave of patriotic satisfaction in the breasts of the Mount Morgan senders of White Feathers …

  In regard to these White Feathers I have one wish and one regret. The wish that the senders may some day in their life experience a fraction of the agony which their thoughtlessness brought to the recipients, and the regret that I did not have the feathers to carry with me as a pillow.3

  With his extensive mining experience, he reported to the officer in charge of the training school for engineer officers of the new Australian Mining Battalion. And here Woodward had the first of many experiences that made him critical of the army’s training and traditions. He wrote: ‘[I had] a list of qualifications and experience in mining which would permit me filling, with reasonable prospect of success, almost any mining job in civil life.’4 Yet he was informed that being a hard rock miner, it was doubtful he would be useful to the new Mining Battalion, which would likely be working in sand, soft soil and clay. ‘This was the first of many occasions when I was forced to admire the success of the Military Organisation in placing square pegs in round holes,’ he reflected.5