Gallipoli and the Anzacs

Crikey! They are coming on in these parts

The Development of the North Beach base, September–November 1915

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Below No.2 Outpost, looking north towards Ari Burnu. [AWM H15372]

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5th Australian Field Amulance in Rest Gully, behind Plugge's Plateau. [AWM P0061/14/07]

On 4 November, in anticipation of the coming winter isolation of the troops on Gallipoli, the No 1 Australian Stationary Hospital was brought to North Beach. By mid-November this large tent hospital, staffed mainly by South Australians, was fully operational:

The hospital is now prepared for wounded. We have [an] operating room, X-Ray plant, surgical wards, and the whole is lighted with electricity. We are now preparing tunnels into the hillside. The hospital gets occasional shells, but we cannot blame the Turks, as we are in the midst of guns and ammunition dumps.

[War Diary, No 1 Australian Stationary Hospital, quoted in A G Butler, Official History of the Australian Army Medical Services, 1914-1918, Gallipoli, Palestine and New Guinea, Vol 1, p.368]

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Walker's Pier at North Beach. [AWM J02448]

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Shortly before the final evacuation of Anzac, Australian engineers built a wooden walkway out to the beached steamer Milo, which had shifted slightly away from Williams' Pier in the November storms. Many Anzacs were evacuated from this temporary pier. [AWM A01032]

Positioned on the southern slopes of North Beach was the labour corps camp. Charles Bean felt this to have been a thoughtless choice of site as it was the one part of North Beach in view of the enemy post at Sniper’s Nest. The labourers were subjected to machine gun fire, and two men were killed on their first night at Anzac. Shells also fell on the unfortunate labourers, and one man died in this way while eating his lunch. These civilian labourers–mainly Egyptians, Maltese and British–had been brought to Anzac to assist in various forms of heavy construction work. Many of the British were over-age for the army and they had expected employment at the docks in Egypt, not close to the front line at Gallipoli. The soldiers dubbed these men ‘The Daddies’ or ‘The Old and Bold’.

But the main activity at North Beach buzzed around the two landing piers. The first of these to have been built was 'Williams’ Pier', named after Brigadier General Godfrey Williams, Chief Engineer at Anzac. In September 1915 this pier was lengthened and a tramway built from it to off-load stores. Later a smaller pier–'Walker’s Pier'-was constructed to the north, opposite Walker’s Ridge. The first severe autumn storm on 8 November badly damaged the piers in Anzac Cove but Williams’ Pier was virtually untouched. It was hoped, therefore, that North Beach might prove to be usable for landing and embarking, even in rough weather. To provide further cover for Williams’ Pier, an old steamer–the Milo–was sunk off the pier-head to act as a breakwater. Essential water supplies, which had been disrupted by the destruction at Anzac Cove, were pumped ashore from barges anchored under the lee of the Milo. Further gales wrought more damage at Anzac Cove but Williams’ Pier and the Milo stood fast.