OUR image this week shows Australian and British soldiers walking around Brown's Dip, near Shrapnel Gully, at Gallipoli in 1915. Rest Gully was further up the hill. Artillery Road also went through the dip.
There are some dugouts and shelters on the slope among the bushes, sandbags and field telegraph poles, along with the three main paths to Lone Pine. Brown's Dip was one of the sites selected as a watering point, so it was not unusual to see soldiers carrying empty water cans to fill up.
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It was at Brown's Dip that the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Battalions of the 1st Brigade, AIF, that had been formed from NSW volunteers, assembled for the Australian diversionary assault on August 6, 1915 on the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine.
Brown's Dip was behind the Lone Pine plateau and the men waited here to enter the front-line trenches in the late afternoon. By 4.30pm, the men had arrived in the forward trenches, at which time a bombardment was laid down by the warships offshore for an hour, firing the salvos on the Turkish positions. The scheduled time of the attack was 5.30pm.
The men had to file through Brown's Dip in the three separate routes on the warm summer afternoon. The soldiers had been issued with white armbands and back patches which were worn to make the troops more visible to each other in the dark.
The Australians were partly successful, and portions of trench were seized. Some men quickly erected a barricade within the trench itself, constructing it of sandbags and many other materials they could find.
The Turks had supplies of their cricket-ball style bombes and they were well-trained on how to throw them. The British and the Australians had arrived with no such bombs at all, although a bomb factory was hastily started near Anzac Headquarters down on the beach.
Showing ingenuity, the bombs were constructed using their empty jam tins stuffed with metal scraps, bits of Turkish shell and barbed wire if it was spare. They were crude but effective.
The Gallipoli campaign began on April 25, 1915, when Australia and other troops began an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula to seize the Dardanelles on their path to capture Constantinople, the capital of Turkey.
This campaign initiated our nation's military legend. It was based on how our soldiers performed at Gallipoli rather than the strategic achievements. Despite the odds of succeeding, the Aussies showed astounding courage, incredible discipline and magnificent endurance during the valiant days on the rugged peninsula and these qualities came to be known as the Anzac spirit which we honour every year with Anzac Day.
Before the men left the inhospitable terrain, they had endured death at every quarter, the relentless Turkish artillery, machine gun fire and snipers, unspeakable conditions, makeshift 'quarters', terrible food and always a shortage of water.
The British-led attack on the Dardanelles, the narrow and strategic sea-lane near Istanbul separating the Aegean and Black seas, aimed to assist London's ally Czarist Russia, then in combat with Turkish forces and the German military.
It was at one end that Brown's Dip was selected as a temporary cemetery for the remains of 149 Australian soldiers. It was located in the depression at the head of Victoria Gully on an important thoroughfare to the front line along Artillery Road.
The graves were for the casualties of the Battle of Lone Pine, with many marked with wooden crosses. Brown's Dip cemetery was initially to remain as a permanent cemetery, however, as the site was considered unstable and prone to erosion and landslides, it was decided in 1923 to move the interned to the new Lone Pine Cemetery.
The nine-month campaign resulted in the death of more than 130,000 troops, including 8700 Australians.
