Hill 60-2005

Hill 60 is not easy to find. One drives along the road that passes ANZAC Cove and on to Suvla and actually drives past the turn off on the way. We did this about four times before we noticed a vague sign hiding behind some bushes. We set off up the narrow dirt track (thank goodness for hire cars!) and took about 5 mins to reach the site. As there is a cemetery there, they have provided a good size parking lot. We walked the last few yards to the cemetery and wandered all through that. (The cemeteries are all beautifully kept and cared for - a real tribute. In fact, the whole place is wonderfully tended.)

The Plaque at Hill 60 >>>

We then wandered about the site itself and located some old trenches which we were freely able to access and walk along.

There was not another soul there so it was great to be alone with memories of my Pop.

I kept replaying excerpts from his letters in my head.....

From one spot in a trench, I could look over my shoulder and back down to the sea beyond Anzac Cove. That was apparently where the men were able to walk to (stumble to?) every few days or so to bathe if the fighting allowed. My husband estimated it would be about a 2 hour walk for them assuming no problems. My Pop was a fanatic about sea-bathing (he was raised in the Manly area) and I could imagine him looking over his shoulder at the water and wishing he could be down there.

I tend to wax lyrical about this topic I know but it is very dear to my heart and I am so glad to have been able to make this journey. I can now give so much more feeling and empathy to that section of my book on my grandfather's time in Gallipoli. My grandfather was a reporter with the Sydney Morning Herald prior to joining up so his letters home were very well-written and very descriptive. I had a good picture of the 'idea of Gallipoli' even before I got there. Wendy Corbett Kelley, 2005.

The Hill 60 Garden of Remembrance, 2005. It is beautifully laid out in front of the entry to the cemetery. It has rosemary (for remembrance) interspersed with about four different types of lavender. Simple but very meaningful.

The attacking force at Hill 60 was a cobbled together mess. Monash's 13th, 14th, 15th & 16th Bns. AIF, (down to 1,400 from 4,000), 2 Regiments of the New Zealand Rifles (each 200 men), the 29th Indian Brigade (1,300 men) and 3 New Army battalions, one with only 330 men. A greater mish-mash is hard to imagine. The 13th AIF were sent in first. 110 were killed or wounded within minutes and more were hit a bit later. The 14th Bn suffered in the same way as the second wave. Godley sent in the 18th Bn. (newly arrived) to make up the losses. They were to be thrown in with "bombs and bayonets" only. When someone explained to Cox that they had no bombs they were told to do what they could. "Make do". The idea of ordering men to attack machine guns with nothing other than rifles & bayonets is criminal stupidity. CRIMINAL STUPIDITY. 750 men went into the charge. 383 did not come out whole. Half were dead. A battalion ruined, for what? So a General could report that he was attacking.

A trench at Hill 60, in 2005, closer to the summit.

At the beginning of August 1915, Hill 60, which commanded the shoreward communications between the forces at Anzac and Suvla, was in Turkish hands. On 22 August, it was attacked from Anzac by the Canterbury and Otago Mounted Rifles, followed later by the 18th Australian Infantry Battalion and supported on the flanks by other troops.

It was partly captured and on 27-29 August, and the captured ground was extended by the 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th and 18th Australian Infantry Battalions, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, the 5th Connaught Rangers, and the 9th and 10th Australian Light Horse. The position was held until the evacuation in December. HILL 60 CEMETERY lies among the trenches of the actions of Hill 60. It was made after those engagements, and enlarged after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from Norfolk Trench Cemetery and from the battlefield.