The Joint Imperial War Museum / Australian War Memorial Battlefield Study

Tour to Gallipoli, September 2000

Suvla: Conditions at Hill 60

Peter Hart (IWM)

H
ill 60 had been fought over many times in the intense fighting following the Suvla
Landings. When troops moved into the line, they could not but be made aware of the
continuing presence of many their predecessors in the front lines.

The very first time we went up to these trenches a lot of the parapets, that is the side
facing the enemy had been built up, it sounds awful, with dead bodies, which were
partially buried under earth. That was as much a means of self protection by the troops
that had fought on the spot and gained that ground as anything else. It was a pretty
gruesome business. Just as we entered the trench going up into the system, there half
buried was a body. And a hand was sticking out. Well, the first time we saw that it
wasn’t awfully funny, but you'd hardly credit this, we got so callous and so used to that
sort of thing, that every time we went into the line we always used to shake hands with
it. It sounds awful but you couldn’t give way to much to one’s feelings and one became
callous. Second Lieutenant Malcolm Hancock, 1/4th Battalion, Northamptonshire
Regt

As they moved into the trenches on the low hill, they were all too conscious of their
responsibilities.

One had anxiety after all it was a very important hill and if by chance you lost it,
goodness that would have been a serious thing to have gone down in the history of the
First Fifth Suffolks as having lost Hill 60. Second Lieutenant Eric Wolton, 1/5th
Battalion, Suffolk Regt

Hill 60 was a compact sector.

The ground sloped on, up beyond our front line. It was occupied by the Turks, they’d
been driven back so far and it was impossible to dislodge them altogether from the
whole of that trench system. They were always just that few feet higher than we were.
They were always in the position of looking down on us and seemed to be able see
what we were doing almost read our minds we felt some times. The trenches when we
first went in were barely deep enough to be safe – I should think about four feet if that.
They’d been improved a certain amount after they’d been captured from the Turks , I
think mostly by New Zealanders and Australians. In fact we took over those trenches
from the Australians and they were very lightly held at that time, only just a few of them
there. They pointed out were the danger spots were, “For God’s sake keep your head
down there! Somebody was killed there last week.” That kind of thing we were told. The

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 The Joint Imperial War Museum / Australian War Memorial Battlefield Study
Tour to Gallipoli, September 2000

first thing we did, of course, was to deepen it as far as we could. It was pretty hard
going because it was rough, sandy, stony ground. But it was our only means of
protection – it’s surprising what a spur to one’s digging efforts it is when you’ve got to
keep your head down for your own safety. The trench ran in an almost a sort of semi-
circle. As we went up the hill we went into the trench on the left and it wound round in a
sort of semi-circle and then off to the side of the hill, it dipped down quite steeply
towards Anzac. Behind that front line there were communication trenches where one
could move about a little bit. But the awful business was that there were s many bodies
there which it had been impossible for anyone to bury and they filled some of these
communication trenches completely and then scratched a little bit of soil – no doubt
done at night. I suppose the Turks front line trench averaged, in front of our front line a
distance of between 25 and 30 yards – comfortable bomb throwing distance – we’ll put
it that way. So you were fairly well aware of what they were up to. The trench to our
right fell away down the side of Hill 60 and if you went down that way you were open to
the Anzac side and to the enemy which were in the high ground there, it was
completely open. So that part of the trench there was covered over, not actually with
sandbags, but with just bits of canvass to look like sandbags. So it looked as if it was a
protection, but it wasn’t really. They couldn’t see us moving – that was the point..
Second Lieutenant Malcolm Hancock, 1/4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt

For the most part dugouts were restricted to makeshift cubby holes scratched out in the wall
of the trench.

Any type of dugout or rest place had to be dug out of the back of the trench. That’s in
the front line. In the communication trenches it wasn’t too bad but it meant that you’d
got to hack your pickaxe and get some sort of shelter to get out of the trench. You
couldn’t lie down and go to sleep in the middle of the trench because people would be
walking over you. You had to get yourself off at the back somewhere, which most
people did. The Commanding Officer had a pretty good dugout there. He and his
servant I remember seeing them both hacking away at this underground shelter with a
will. He constructed quite a good place, it was could have been six foot square, that
kind of thing. Pretty well down on the ground so you’d probably got two or three feet of
earth above – unlikely that a shell would crash threw it. He quite rightly did his best to
preserve his own life – apart from the fact that he was responsible for the work of the
battalion, it was vital that he was as safe as he could be made. Second Lieutenant
Malcolm Hancock, 1/4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt

The daily routine of trench life to which they were introduced was one of sordid, filthy
monotony. Every morning brought the 'Stand to'. This was when, as it suggests, the whole of
the battalion would stand ready to repel any Turkish attack - a period of heightened readiness
usually taking place at the the most likely time of attack , the hour of dawn. Following this a
twenty four hour sentry duty rota was established to keep an eye on the Turks. With the ever
present threat of a bullet through the head from snipers, it was obviously too risky to look

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Tour to Gallipoli, September 2000

directly over the parapet during the day and periscopes were often used. The average sentry
would not look over the top all the time, even with a periscope, but would glance for a moment
or two just to check all was well, whilst listening for signs of increased Turkish activity. Even
at night they had to be careful of Turkish snipers, fixed line rifles and casually firing machine
guns. Throughout the day and night it was the role of junior subalterns to patrol the front lines
checking that the sentries were alert.

Gallipoli was unique in that there was no safe rear area - whether the soldier was in the front
line, the rest camp dugout or swimming at sea, there was always a chance that he could be
killed or maimed by enemy fire. Nevertheless, although this strain was continuous, the actual
level of routine day to day fighting was less intense than that generally experienced on the
Western Front. The main difference lay in the artillery situation - for at Gallipoli both sides
were inadequately provided with both guns and ammunition. Had the Turks had more guns
and HE shell then the cramped British positions would almost certainly have been untenable.
In the relative absence of shell fire, sniping was a terrible threat as the Gallipoli terrain made
concealment easy and the Turks had a good view down into the British trenches. The British
snipers were at a considerable disadvantage although there were very limited supplies of the
periscope rifle.

A periscope rifle was pushed up over the top of the trench. It had a reflector fitted on it
so that you could see from down the level of the trench, up along the barrel of the rifle.
On one occasion we had a little blitz on one of these trenches that had been sealed off
by the Turks, the other end of our bit. By systematically aiming at the top of the
sandbag it made a little jag in the sandbag. You then went down two or three inches
lower and gradually split that sandbag down. We were able to completely disrupt one of
those sandbagged areas - you could I think it probably was a machine gun post – you
could see that the part that had been built up to hold a machine gun began to slip. We
were rather pleased with it. Of course they built it up at night and next day it was back.
That was the kind of thing we were engaged in - just being a damn nuisance to them as
far as we could. Second Lieutenant Malcolm Hancock, 1/4th Battalion,
Northamptonshire Regt

Just as the development of trenches recalled the siege warfare of an earlier age so troops of
both sides turned to an old weapon - the hand grenade or 'bomb' as it was then known.
Where the trench lines were close together, as at Hill 60, bombs were a vital tool of offensive
and defensive warfare. The British were not initially supplied with hand grenades and the first
ones used were improvisations. Second Lieutenant Hancock acted as bombing officer in the
line.

Every now and again I would lob a few bombs over. I probably had two chaps with me.
They would have these bombs lined up behind me; I did the throwing always. They
were pretty crude sorts of bombs. I remember three types. One was what we called a
jam tin which was rather like a one pound tin of jam, into which was put a charge of

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 The Joint Imperial War Museum / Australian War Memorial Battlefield Study
Tour to Gallipoli, September 2000

explosive of some kind. It might be gelignite, might be dynamite – whatever. Then a

fuse was inserted into a detonator, the neck of the detonator was crimped together to
hold the fuse into the detonator. It was put in through a hole in the top of the lid down
into the explosive and then you've got probably four or five inches of fuse exposed. In
order to use it you would hold probably in one's left hand. To light the fuse, you had to
be darn careful not to show a light at night and often I would use the end of my
cigarette - we were always smoking - that was very effective. Then as soon as you
heard it begin to fizz, keep it for about two or three seconds - not too long but not too
soon either - you tried to get it to explode on landing.

Now it wouldn't be in the air very long and you had to try to get your timing right. You
hoped it dropped into the trench. You couldn’t see but you heard the thing go off. There
were two other kinds I remember. One was what we called the cricket ball. It was about
the size of a cricket ball, it was a cast iron shaped round thing, with a hole in the top. It
had been previously filled with an explosive of some sort. Again you primed it with a
detonator and a fuse down through the hole, exactly the same thing and you threw it
as you would bowling it over-arm, lobbing it over into the trench which wasn’t very far
away. You hoped you got there. When it exploded, the detonator, the cast iron broke
into little bits and it was the fragments which did the damage – to the Turks you hoped.
The other was a thing called the hairbrush. It was a flat piece of wood about six inches
square perhaps, with a handle at the end. On to that slab of wood was tied a piece of
dynamite. The explosion was local but very intense. You primed that in much the same
way That was a good thing to throw because you'd got a handle to throw it by and one
got quite good at that. Now another source of our bombs were the Turkish jam tins.
They were extremely badly done. I should think that 30% of them failed to go off. We
heard them fall and if they didn't go off we marked that down, 'There's a dud there', and
we had to guess more or less where it was – we couldn’t see it. Then at night, I used to
go out, sometimes I used to have someone with me, crawling about in our little bit of No
Man's Land collecting these dammed things. They were a very good source of
ammunition – I mean we were dammed short of these things. All I had to do was to
take the fuse out which hadn't burnt through, take that out, re-fuse with a detonator on
the end and chuck it back!. They always went off, a highly satisfactory sound. Second
Lieutenant Malcolm Hancock, 1/4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt

It should be emphasised that the Turks did not take this bombing lying down and usually
replied with a vigour.

We thought we might have a bit of fun, chuck a few bombs over. The Turks started
throwing the stuff over and we got quite a lot of aggro going. I was in a little bomb bay
right up underneath our front line. Without my knowing a Turkish bomb came in right
beside me and the bloody thing went off. It knocked me flat and just for a moment I
wondered what the Hell's happened. But why I wasn't killed I can't imagine. It was on of
their jam tins and it exploded into no end of tiny fragments of tin. I made a bit of a mess

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Tour to Gallipoli, September 2000

of my face but it was only skin deep. It was frightening more than anything, the terrific
noise of the thing going off that's enough to make you think that something frightful had
happened although it might not have done. Second Lieutenant Malcolm Hancock,
1/4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt

On the flanks of Hill 60 where the lines were further apart there were occasional patrols from
both sides.

When they were fairly distant there were patrols. I remember a Turkish patrol coming
and we were very proud because we shot 2 or 3 of them. We were proud of seeing
their bodies lying in front. Until... The smell was so awful, too awful, we wished we'd
taken them in straight away. We used to hope that by shooting into the bodies the smell
would go but they kept swelling and swelling, getting worse and worse - making awful
smells. How ever many bullets you pumped into them it didn't seem to make any
difference. I thought the gases would have escaped and gone but it didn't appear to,
not for a long time. Second Lieutenant Eric Wolton, 1/5th Battalion, Suffolk Regt

The remoteness of the Peninsula from the main British bases meant that there were great
difficulties in even supplying the troops with the basic necessities of life. The actual rations
issued in the front line were usually reduced to bully beef, biscuits, bread, jam, bacon,
cheese, tea and sugar. Tinned bully beef, the British Army staple diet whatever the climate, is
now more usually known as corned beef. This was not the most suitable type of food in the
hot sun as it melted into an unappetising goo. The biscuits were mainly square Huntley and
Palmers which were almost universally disliked, although if anything the troops seem to have
hated the jam ration even more.

The master cook he arranged for the rations to come up, he used to have to indent for
a certain number of rations that would have to be brought up. He and his assistant
cooks prepared the food away down behind our trenches in some comparatively safe
place and I must say he did marvellously with what he had, which was almost
exclusively bully beef, the main thing, in these tins. Personally, I have no objection to it,
except that we had absolutely nothing else and we got sick to death of it. The only jam
we ever had was apricot – ever! I’ve never seen any other kind of jam there at all. Then
we had these biscuits, hard biscuits that were not unlike the dog biscuit, really, that kind
of thing. There was very little variation – it was boring. There were times when we used
to get a bit of bacon sometimes on a morning and tea was sent up. But you didn’t get
an awful lot of liquid you see because of the general shortage of water. When you’re
rationed to a pint a day per man for 24 hours it doesn’t leave much, there’s nothing left
over – it had to go a long, long way. Second Lieutenant Malcolm Hancock, 1/4th
Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt

The very restricted diet caused medical problems as their skin became pasty and every sore
turned septic.

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Tour to Gallipoli, September 2000

Throughout the campaign the supply of water was a problem at Gallipoli. The local wells were
adequate for the normal population of the Peninsula, but the addition of tens of thousands of
thirsty men and animals, all broiling under a hot sun, meant that further measures had to be
found urgently. New wells were dug and water was brought over from Egypt, but despite all
this effort, not enough water got to the troops in the front line. In such circumstances washing
was very much a secondary consideration. Water parties were sent back from Hill 60 towards
the beach area.

It seemed to be my job to take these water parties down. I think it was almost every
other night. I led the party and I had an NCO behind. Each man carried two 2 gallon
cans on either side. We were in single file two or three yards apart. Now if you go too
fast you lose touch with those at the tail end. We went down to the beach and filled the
cans from wide open barges rather shallow, eight or ten foot wide and twenty or thirty
feet long. They in turn had been filled with water from the ships. We just put the can in,
let it fill and pulled it out. Of course the water was pretty murky. But this was the only
time we were able to get a decent drink! Second Lieutenant Malcolm Hancock, 1/4th
Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt

Washing and shaving in these circumstances was almost impossible. Another common
irritant for the long suffering troops was lice. Many different methods were tried in order to get
rid of these vermin - but the lice and general filth faded into insignificance compared to the
nuisance posed by the omnipresent flies. This was one of the biggest curses. There were
millions and millions of them.

The flies were awful, they fed on the corpses, the whole hill was littered with them. If
you put jam on your biscuits they were instantly covered in them. Second Lieutenant
Eric Wolton, 1/5th Battalion, Suffolk Regt

At times the sides of the trench would be one black swarming mass of flies. They loved all
sources of moisture and swarmed over the soldiers. Any cuts or sores that would soon be
infected and turn dangerously septic.

We often used to wonder what happened to the flies before we came? But it was
terrible because that was the reason why the disease, dysentery particularly spread so
quickly, so rapidly. They contaminated any food which was exposed, any food that you
had had to be covered up the whole time until you actually ate it. And while you were
eating anything you had to wave the flies away with the other hand while you put a
mouthful of food in your mouth, Otherwise you swallowed some flies as well. Flies were
all over one, they crawled over your face and they you were constantly waving them
away. It was a horrid feeling really and you knew that where they'd been, you knew the
risk of that every body took of getting dysentery. Second Lieutenant Malcolm
Hancock, 1/4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt

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The juxtaposition between the widespread outbreaks of dysentery and the flies was obvious.
A fly generally defecates whilst eating and so the infection went round in the most vicious of
circles - the flies crawled over the bloated corpses and then wafted themselves onto the food
of the troops. Latrines were another obvious attraction to the discerning fly. The combination
of a totally unsuitable diet, flies, putrid corpses and latrines resulted in a terrible debilitating
disease, dysentery, which afflicted almost everyone who set foot on the Peninsula. 'House
flies are much the most important means of spreading dysentery. Their two favourite articles
1
of diet are faeces and jam.' i It was this disease, above all, that caused the rapid physical
decline of those who landed at Gallipoli. Thousands of men suffered agonies as they used a
hole in the ground as a toilet, with no paper and no way of washing the muck away.
Eventually men in the final stages of the disease had neither the strength nor the inclination to
drag themselves to latrines to relieve themselves. And so they were robbed of the last
vestiges of human dignity as they lay in their own filth. Thousands died or were evacuated
close to death in this manner.

There were other diseases which capitalised on the weak state of the troops - often one man
would have a combination of distressing ailments, all spread by the flies and unsanitary
conditions. The Gallipoli cocktail of ailments included jaundice and para-typhoid or enteric
fever. The infecting organism of the latter could still be present in a sufferer’s excreta up to a
year after they had the illness – flies then carried the disease to the food and drink of others,
and so the circle of infection spread. Symptoms included headaches, stomach pains,
diarrhoea, a bronchial cough, large irregular spots and a high temperature with associated
sweating. Although not often fatal it was a debilitating condition. Once the disease was
established, prevention proved impossible as mild cases were not often correctly diagnosed.
A further effect of the conditions was the collection of symptoms known as 'soldier's heart'.
This is the generic name for a variety of cardiac disorders suffered by soldiers, usually due to
a combination of over exertion, mental strain and lack of sleep acting on a constitution
weakened by some form of toxaemia or disease. As can be imagined this condition was
prevalent at Gallipoli, where the appalling conditions were the typical lot of the average
soldier.

But though it all the humour of the British soldier survived - at least in part!

When we were in reserve at Dixon's Gully we were one side of the gully which is only
about, I should say, 50 yards across. The Company was on the sheltered side but the
latrines were on the other side, about 20 yards away from us. Of course we had no
screens or anything of that sort, but we had the luxury of a pole which was rather
marvellous to sit on! Only about 20 yards from us, where the rest of the people were
and you had a first class view of the evacuation of nature! What with diarrhoea and
dysentery it was frequently used. One day everybody was sitting on this pole - it was

1
Sir Arthur Hurst, Medical Diseases of War, (London: Edward Arnold & Co, 1940), p195.

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completely occupied - and suddenly, without any warning whatever, it gave way with a
crack and deposited all those poor people right in the bottom of this filth. Urrghh!
Instead of being sorry we laughed, tears came down my face. I don't know why, we had
so little to laugh at but instead of being sympathetic, well we laughed. Frightful, the look
on their faces was awful! Oooh poor things!!! Second Lieutenant Eric Wolton, 1/5th
Battalion, Suffolk Regt

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