Final stage of the evacuation from Anzac Cove: narrative from battalion war diaries

Part 3 in a series of three blog posts about the evacuation from Gallipoli

The evacuation of Gallipoli began on 22 November 1915, when a plan was adopted during a conference at General Headquarters, Mudros. This was after Lord Kitchener's visit to Gallipoli in early November, during which he told General Birdwood to start thinking about how to evacuate, and before the recommendation was approved by British Parliament. Charles Bean, the official Australian historian of the First World War, wrote that this was the reason behind the evacuation plan being divided into three stages.

The evacuation from Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay occurred simultaneously, with the final evacuation of Helles coming later, on 9 January 1916. The operation from Anzac Cove, beginning on 22 November and ending on 20 December, consisted of the preliminary, intermediary, and final stages. To mark the centenary of the evacuation from Anzac Cove, a narrative blog post will be released to coincide with the dates that each of these stages commenced in 1915.

The idea was that the preliminary stage (sixteen days) could begin immediately, regardless of the decision made by the British Parliament, and would involve reducing the number of men required to defend positions during winter. In the official history Bean described the intermediary stage (ten days) as one where "the force and material would be reduced until there remained only a bare sufficiency to enable the positions to be held for a week against attack". During the final stage all remaining men were to be withdrawn over a period of two days. The following table, taken from the second volume of the Official history of Australia in the war of 1914–1918, provides an overview of the numbers of men, guns, and animals that needed to leave Anzac during each stage of the evacuation.

The final stage of the evacuation

The intermediate stage of the evacuation ended during the early morning of 18 December 1915. Over the preceding 10 days, approximately 15, 168 men had been withdrawn from Anzac Cove.

Bean recounts that the final stage of the evacuation from Anzac Cove began at daybreak on 18 December 1915. Extending over two days and into the early hours of 20 December 1915, the operation required the evacuation of some 20, 200 troops. Only 10, 000 of these men were to be remaining at Anzac Cove when the second day of the operation began on 19 December 1915. A map showing the locations of each unit and the route that was to be followed to reach the beaches for re-embarkation is shown below.

The preparations for the departure had been carefully planned down to the finest details. Embarkation points were set up at Watson's Pier at Anzac Cove and Walker's, Williams, and Milo's piers at North Beach. The remaining units were to be divided into A, B, and C parties where the C party would be the last to leave. The composition and responsibilities of these parties, as detailed for the 2nd Battalion, is given below:

C Class was to be absolutely the best men as regard steadiness, discipline & shooting.

B class will be next best 15 and A class will be the least active members of the 45.

Each leader must know his men personally and he must have a nominal roll of them and the men of each party must know one another and to which party they belong.

The operation was not without some trepidation as to how successful it would be. General Birdwood, entrusted with completing the task, wrote to his wife on 18 December:

We may have an awful time of it – as bad as any army has ever had, for we shall be carrying out one of the most difficult operations in warfare…But I am confident that things will go well. Providence has helped us so far & I have every trust that we shall be helped to the end.

In this same letter, Birdwood reflected on the time that he had spent at Anzac:

Tomorrow I go to Anzac for a final look round at the position & trenches of which I have been so proud & for which I have so much lived during all these last months. I really feel like abandoning a child in leaving here, it makes me nearly cry!

But Birdwood was only one of many pondering the coming evacuation.

The narrative below tells the story of the final stage of the evacuation of Australian troops from Anzac Cove between 18 December and 20 December 1915, based on reports contained within official unit war diaries kept by the Australian battalions that were there:

• 2nd Battalion
• 3rd Battalion
• 4th Battalion
• 7th Battalion
• 13th Battalion
• 17th Battalion
• 18th Battalion
• 19th Battalion
• 20th Battalion
• 21st Battalion
• 22nd Battalion
• 24th Battalion

Interspersed among the official reports are personal stories taken from a selection of diaries digitised as part of the Anzac Connections project, including:

• Sergeant Richard Gardiner
• Major Geoffrey McCrae
• Captain Clarence Wallach
• Second Lieutenant Cyril Pryor
• Craftsman Apcar De Vine
• Corporal Vivian Noble
• Corporal Henry Wyatt
• Lieutenant John Adams
• Sergeant Wilbert Berg

Where possible, names of people mentioned in the diaries have been identified and links provided to their profiles on the Australian War Memorial website. The war diaries for the units mentioned above have also been completely transcribed in the course of compiling this blog post and can be read here.

Note: Not all battalions kept a unit war diary during December 1915, nor did all battalions record daily entries. The 1st and 16th Battalions did not keep diaries, although men from these battalions were among the last to leave.

Daily narrative taken from unit war diaries and personal accounts – December 1915

The first day: 18/19 December 1915

A couple of hours before the final stage of the evacuation officially began, there were reports of a fire on the beach at 12.25am on 18 December. Division Headquarters sent a message to the 21st Battalion requesting assistance to help extinguish the blaze that had engulfed surplus stores. Three companies from the 21st Battalion were despatched to respond.

At 6.30am, the men selected to form the 2nd Battalion's C Party for the final night returned from a rehearsal of the march from Shell Green to the beach, wearing muffled boots. At the time, it was reported that a heavy fog covered everything. Even though the sun was shining later, the fog remained in the valleys.  

During the morning, the garrison at Lone Pine was completely taken over by the 24th Battalion so that the parties of men from the 21st and 23rd Battalions, who had been assisting them, could carry out evacuation orders. A Company, 21st Battalion, had re-joined the rest of the battalion in Shrapnel Gully at 6pm the evening before.  At 10.45am, the 21st Battalion took over the lines held by 13th Light Horse. Early in the afternoon the 21st Battalion also took over the lines held by the 22nd Battalion. This included Wire Gully.

Most battalions reported activities during the day to be normal. Artillery fire was reported to be quiet behind Australian lines, sniping continued as normal, and Turkish soldiers were observed digging in the vicinity of Boomerang Trench. Heavy shelling was reported at Russell's Top where the 20th Battalion were located. Preparations for the evacuation were also underway, with a focus on cleaning up trenches and reducing stores by means of destruction, burial, or packing to send away or return to the QM.

Sometime during the day an order direct from the Army Corps Commander was read to the men. The order can be read in full here [insert link]. This excerpt illustrates the context of the events that were about to begin:

In case by any chance we are attacked on either day, the Army Corps Commander is confident that the men who have to their credit such deeds as the original landing at Anzac, the repulse of the big Turkish attack on May 18th, the capture of Lone Pine, the Apex, and Hill 60, will hold their ground with the same valour and steadfastness as heretofore, however small in numbers they may be, and he wishes all men to understand that it is impossible for the Turk to know or tell what our numbers are, even up to the last portion of "C" party on the last night, as long as we stand our ground.

At 11.30am, the 7th Battalion received the 1st Infantry Brigade Order No 5, which detailed the plans for the evacuation:

The principle upon which withdrawal will be effected will be a gradual reduction from our present fire trenches. The times of withdrawal being determined by the times at which troops will be required to embark, and the distance from the place of embarkation.

This order detailed that 800 men of all ranks from the 1st Infantry Brigade were to re-embark during the night of 18/19 December 1915. During the final two days time was to be set by the 1st Brigade Signal Section at 8am, 4pm and other intervals during the night. The procedures for the disposal of equipment and stores during the first day and night were also described in detail:

At 12pm, the 2nd Battalion received the final arrangements for the evacuation at a conference attended by commanding officers and the Brigadier. Procedures were to be read to the men on three separate occasions and included the following points:

•  Changes to the commands that were normally used
• The necessity to maintain normal appearances with no lights and no smoking
• The beach to be kept clean so as not to hamper re-embarkation
• The wearing of muffled boots, adhering to set routes and quiet during the withdrawal
• Completing loading and offloading of lighters quickly

Three hours later, further instructions for the following day were issued to company commanders of the 2nd Battalion. Some of these were identical to orders previously issued in regards to tasks and activities that had to be completed before the final departure of troops. Others were very specific and pointed in their detail, with some that appear unique to the 2nd Battalion:

5. All cooking pots will be destroyed by having holes punched in them with a pick or trenching tool near QM store at 1800 with the exception of 4 per company to be used for OXO for “B” party at 2100 and for “C” party at 2400. Company commanders will be responsible that the OXO is prepared for these parties and that these cooking pots are destroyed after the OXO has been served..

11. Lines must be left absolutely clean. Some men unfortunately are not instinctively sanitary in their habits and care must be taken to see that they do not leave lines filthy or otherwise than clean…

12. During the day men will run about normally and on approach of an aircraft they will expire themselves to view and NOT hide out of sight.

During the afternoon, the first men began to leave the trenches in accordance with the planned timetables and routes.. This followed confirmation at 4.30pm by the 3rd Battalion, that the evacuation of Anzac would begin that night and be completed during the following night. Wallach also commented that it was on this day that he was informed officially of the evacuation. In total, 1000 men from the 1st Brigade left on the night of 18/19 December 1915 with the details shown in this table taken from the 7th Battalion war diary.

The table below provides a timeline of activities and the units involved from 4.30pm, 18 December 1915, through to the early hours of 19 December 1915.

Three officers and 124 Other Ranks under the command of Lieutenant Hugh Pulling, 13th Battalion, also left Durrant's Post during the night. Pryor reported in his diary:

Beach almost deserted. Nearly all units away safely. So far every thing successful.

It was reported by De Vine that stores had been thrown open to the men, who were permitted to take what they liked. Adams reported that as a consequence, jam and Machonachie rations were available “by the ton” with the result that “most of us are sick, owing to being on short rations so long”.

Wallach reported that the 5th Brigade had the honour of being the last to leave and that after the departure of men on the first night, the remaining men had to “hold our post [Pope's Post] with 100 men.”

Over the course of the day, six men were sent to hospital. three men were wounded and two men had been killed. Reported strength for the 22nd Battalion was given as ten officers and 406 Other Ranks. At 6.30am, the 7th Battalion reported their strength to be 24 officers and 607 Other Ranks.

The Second Day: 19/20 December 1915

The second day of the final stage of the evacuation dawned fine but cold, according to the 2nd Battalion. It was reported that the Turkish forces did not appear to have realised that there was an evacuation scheme underway. During the night, both sides had placed barbed wire in front of their trenches. Sniping was also kept up by both sides.

At Russell's Top, heavy shelling was experienced throughout the day. An enemy aeroplane was observed circling overhead and fired a machine gun at a party of men on Walker's Ridge. There were no casualties reported. Shelling also occurred at Lone Pine at intervals during the day and it was believed that the parties of men ordered to stand and move about on Gun Road, in full view of Gaba Tepe, may have attracted this attention.

Lieutenant Colonel Harold “Pompey” Elliott was sent to hospital in the morning, suffering from a sprained ankle, and Major Alfred Jackson took over command of the 7th Battalion. During the afternoon, men from the 18th Battalion left Courtney's Post in groups of two or three to form a garrison at Plugge's Plateau. General Birdwood visited the 3rd Battalion at Shell Green at 1pm to inspect the trenches.

Preparations continued for the final evacuation of Anzac Cove. The 22nd Battalion reported dumping 70,000 rounds of ammunition and 1400 grenades. Likewise, the 7th Battalion reported parties of men were employed during the day to bury 20,000 rounds of ammunition and 3,000 grenades. Blankets were torn up to carpet the trenches in order to deaden the sound of marching men. Pieces were also wrapped around boots to soften the sounds of footfalls during the marches to the beach that commenced at dusk. Cooking fires were kept burning, surplus stores were destroyed, and equipment rendered useless.

Captain Bernard Duggan, a member of the rear-guard party for the 21st Battalion, gave a detailed account of the afternoon's activities that was appended to the war diary. He reported that on “taking over the show” he organised a timetable of when each party was to relieve the departing party. Regarding the destruction of equipment and establishment of ruses for the Turkish forces, he explains:

During the afternoon I got 6 rifles removed and destroyed the back pegs and dial sights, safety catches and magazines and threw them away. Then I fixed the rifles on the parapet of certain rest posts and with a piece of string, a fuse and a weight adjusted these so that they would each fire one round after we left.

The 13th Battalion reported setting up rifles in such a way that lighting a candle would cause them to fire five, ten, or fifteen minutes later. Wallach was also employed to set up self-firing rifles, as well as mining tunnels with barbed wire, and describes these processes in detail:

A very busy day for me...wiring up the tunnels with barbed wire with bombs attached, so that if they touched the wires, up they would go, a fairly risky job that you did not touch the wires yourself, also fixing rifles to fire at intervals up to six minutes after the last party had left, an ingenious invention, a fuse burning a string through with a brick attached to the end of it, which when the fuse burnt down through it would drop and so jerk the trigger.

The intention was always to continue activities that would encourage the Turkish troops to believe that everything was normal. Adams, 2nd Battalion, writes:

During the day men were detailed to walk along tracks that came under the Turks observation, the same men walked to & fro smoking cigarettes, some carried empty boxes & dumped them out of sight; mules were equipped carrying empty boxes etc.

Opportunities for the men to take what they wished from surplus stores continued during the afternoon and many took advantage, filling their packs with as much of these delicacies as they could, as explained by Adams:

To our surprise we found Butter, Strawberry jam & other delicacies things we never saw before on the Peninsula. We had the feed of our life & most of us became sick after such luxuries. Later the dump was burnt. It was awful to see these stores being destroyed & us being on ½ rations for so long. Most of us have packed our Kit with delicacies as we leave tonight

Orders received by the 2nd Battalion at 3pm on 18 December, provide details the procedures to be followed during the march from the trenches down to the beach and the embarkation points. Across the board, X point was marked by a white light, Y by a green light, and Cemetery Sap was marked by a red light. The first parties, A, B1, and B2, were to depart at five minute intervals and men were ordered to keep close together during the subsequent march. Officers and men in these parties would carry two grenades each. Those men making up the C1, C2, and C3 parties would carry three grenades each, generally to be cricket ball grenades. The packs of the C parties were to be carried by those in the A and B parties.

A Party

The A parties of each battalion began preparations to depart the trenches at 3pm, with departures of these groups of men continuing through to approximately 7pm.

One of these men was Gardiner, who described the march to the beach afterwards:

we left, with our feet padded, our bayonets wrapped up & not making a sound we sneaked away down the saps to the beach just after dark, with a bomb in each pocket, which we threw into the sea on embarking.

At 6 o'clock when we left we got straight onto barges & embarked on the SS Abbassia & there put in a very chilly night sleeping on the deck.

In the words of Wallach, after the departure of these parties “things became very strenuous from this on, only a few men in the firing line and all have been on duty for the past 24 hours”.

Others continued with the destruction and burial of stores as detailed by Duggan, 21st Battalion:

At about 8pm, all ammunition more than I judged the remaining men could use in repelling an attack and also all the jam tins and ordinary fused grenades were dumped in the latrines. Captain Crowther had charge of this part of the show and did exceptionally good work. We were only supposed to have taken over between 60 and 70 thousand rounds of SAA but found there were over 120,000 when we had to dump it.

 A timeline of the activities and departures of the A parties is shown below.

B Party

The B parties of each battalion, B1 and B2 as they were generally known, began to prepare to leave the trenches from 8.45pm. The departures of these men continued until about midnight. For the 3rd Battalion, this left five officers, 61 Other Ranks and a machine gun in the trenches they held at Shell Green. It was reported that the enemy was very quiet but the men who remained kept up a vigorous sniping.

As had occurred with the departure of the A Party, the remaining members of the 21st Battalion continued with the reduction of grenades and ammunition. Captain Henry Crowther and Sergeant Hardwick, together with other members of the C2 and C3 parties, reduced the total amount of ammunition to 2,000 rounds, by dumping the surplus ammunition into latrines and filling them in.

Amongst the orders and instructions handed down by the 2nd Battalion was one concerning the packs belonging to the men of C Party, which were left with the men of A and B Parties: “Men to whom packs are handed are responsible for them until owners claim them, and must take every care of them.” Adams definitely followed this order; after they had successfully made it aboard Elkahwa, he discovered that one of the men in his party had dropped a pack. Adams boarded a lighter returning to Anzac Cove and went in search of the missing pack at Brighton Beach. Having successfully located it, he re-boarded the Elkahwa at midnight.

Wallach had described the period after the departure of A Party as strenuous, but the leave-taking of B2 Party at 11.30pm was even more so:

…then the nerve racking part started! If Abdul came now it was good-night, only 30 of us left on the Post. During the afternoon our OC called we thirty to-gether and asked us if anyone wanted to pull out, he would not think anything the less of him, but not one dropped out. He told us that if anything went wrong, we just had to hang on and fight it out to the last man, we were the men to be sacrificed if anything went wrong

Wallach goes on to report that four men remained in a trench that had previously been manned by an entire company when they received a report of 100 Turkish soldiers coming down Malone Gully. Much later, they learnt that the enemy party had stopped halfway down Malone Gully and started digging in but in the meantime, the whereabouts of the group continued to trouble them.

 A timeline of the activities and departures of the B Parties is shown below.

C Party

The C Parties of each battalion, C1, C2, and C3 as they were generally known, began to leave the trenches from 1.55am with departures continuing until about 3.31am. For the 18th Battalion, the composition of these C Parties was as follows:

• C1 Party consisted of Major Sydney Goodsell, Captain Plant, Second Lieutenant Harry Gribben, Second Lieutenant Doyle and Second Lieutenant Fawcett with a party totalling sixteen in number.
• C2 Party consisted of Second Lieutenant Charles Walklate and all machine gunners. The party totalled seventeen in all.
• C3 Party consisted of seventeen men including Captain Rupert Sadler, Lieutenant Ronald McNiven, and Second Lieutenant Robert Reid.

The 18th Battalion also sent a party of fifty men together with Major George Murphy, Captain Errol Kirke, Captain Herbert Bruce, and Lieutenant John Lane to Plugges Plateau. This party was “told off” for helping with covering the retirement of the remaining men.

Duggan reported on the final actions that he undertook with the self-firing rifles before leaving the trenches with the 21st Battalion:

The fuse supplied by the Engineers burnt too quickly so I fastened a piece of old web equipment to act as a fuse. At about 0215 I loaded three rifles and noticed that there was an extra heavy dew and the bits of web equipment were very damp and on trying them I found that they were very difficult to light and when lit would smoulder out, I therefore got some cords of Manilla rope which I tried and found very good. I put pieces of this latter on the rifles and got each man of my party to light the one nearest him at 2040. On leaving I tried one of the rifles by pulling on the weight and found it worked very satisfactorily. We, the C3 Party left at 0245 it taking five minutes to light the fuses and assembly at the old HQ 21 Batt where our packs were stack, the rifles would go off at odd times from 20 minutes to an hour after we left.

Of the final march to the beach, Wallach writes:

…we had to carry our packs and rifles and ammunition as well as two machine guns and parts and 2000 rounds for the guns, which necessitated our resting six times on the way to the beach, a distance of nearly two miles.

 A timeline of the activities and departures of the C parties is shown below.

Last words on departure from Anzac

The unit war diaries, official history of Australia in the First World War and selected personal diaries and letters provide an insight into the activities and emotions of the final days at Anzac Cove. There are also many more stories, reflections and accounts of the final hours at Anzac than can be accommodated here.

Diary entries and letters from this period in particular reveal myriad emotions and opinions on the departure from the peninsula. Some simply accepted it as their lot as a soldier and trusted that there was a good reason behind the decision. Others were noticeably upset. Many had mixed emotions.

The final word on this event is best left to those who were there:

To conclude, I don’t think any one was sorry to leave the Peninsula, although when I passed the cemetery on the way to the beach I thought of the chaps who had fallen & I think I would rather have stuck it, than sneak away like that, but in this game orders are orders which have to be obeyed.

- Richard Job Gardiner

I shall never forget passing the graves of our boys who had fallen, we just looked at each other, but no one spoke, some were too exhausted and some on account of their feelings….Our transport steamed away and soon all that could be seen was the dull red glare in the sky of the Suvla Bay fire.

- Clarence Wallach