Above is a modern photo of the Anzac area of Gallipoli Peninsular, showing the steep terrain. The positions reached by the Anzacs were along the skyline. The main access was up Monash Valley in the centre.
Although I have written articles about the American War of Independence, the American Civil War and the First World War I have written the most number of articles about the First World War for the simple reason that a lot of relatives of readers served in that War. Some relatives died but quite a few survived it. One particular component common to all the men who lost their lives was that they were all buried in cemeteries and headstones were installed. We now have three instances where the bodies of soldiers were not located and the men’s sacrifice is recognised instead on memorials.
The monochrome photos were taken during the War and were reproduced in the “Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18”.
The three soldiers
This article describes the military careers of three of my wife’s distant relatives who fell into the latter category. Two served at Gallipoli in the First World War in 1915. One of the men (James Henry Lenton) died at Gallipoli, the other (Charles Joseph Lenton) survived Gallipoli but died later in France. The third man (Charles William Lenton) served and died in France.
I will not even attempt to describe how they are related to my wife because the family tree is so large.
On the subject of Gallipoli, in previous articles I also referred to two of my relatives, Cyril Spurge and Arnold McDonald, who also served at Gallipoli but fortunately survived the War. In another article I referred to Ernest Fairlie, who took part in a landing soon afterwards at Krythia, further up the coast, where he was killed.
Introduction to Gallipoli
This is a photo of Anzac Beach and the depots set into the hill below the Sphinx, which was to the north of the main combat area.
James and Charles Joseph took part in the sequence of landings at Gallipoli in April 1915, when the terrain was far steeper than expected and the Turks were better prepared than anticipated. Several weeks earlier a Turkish plane had detected a big naval buildup at the nearby island of Lemnos, provoking the Turks into placing troops along the Gallipoli Peninsular. Although the Turkish troops were spread out they were strategically placed and well armed. In fact the Australian troops achieved their furthest positions on the first day on the main ridge, but could not mobilise sufficient numbers to consolidate their positions, being forced off the tops of the ridge. Thereafter they settled down to a campaign of trench warfare below the skyline, with both sides digging a system of trenches which were maintained for the duration of the War.
The Turks had the advantage of commanding the high ground, where they could see (and shoot at) most of the Anzac positions, and being themselves able to move troops around using rough roads and tracks behind the ridge.
Key positions
Here is a photo of Steele’s Post, one of the main vantage points, showing the steep terrain and the covered trenches clinging to the hillside.
The key positions on the skyline area included (from north to south) Bloody Angle, The Nek, The Chessboard (a maze of Turkish trenches), Quinn’s, Courtney’s and Steele’s Posts (Anzac vantage points which were fought over at length, with Turkish trenches often being only 10 metres away), Johnston’s Jolly, The Pimple and Lone Pine.
Major attacks by the Turks on 18th May and 29th June, which were anticipated by the Anzacs, proved fruitless and resulted in possibly thousands of Turkish casualties. Thereafter until early August the Anzacs and Turks played cat and mouse games with both sides shelling, sniping, mounting raids, throwing grenades and tunnelling at all hours of the day and night.
Charles was in the 16th Battalion and James was in the 15th. On 2nd May their Battalions attacked the “Chessboard” and were heavily involved for five weeks in the fighting at the head of Monash Valley and in the fighting at the notorious Quinn’s Post, where two thirds of their complement were casualties.
The continual strain of the close fighting was too much for Charles Joseph Lenton, who on 24th July was diagnosed with neurasthenia, commonly known as shell shock, and he was repatriated to hospital in Cairo, where we will leave him for the time being. Meanwhile James continued serving at Gallipoli until the Fourth Brigade (which included his 15th Battalion) took part in a fresh offensive in early August.
The August Offensive
Below is a photo of area north of The Sphinx, showing in the middle distance the area attacked by the Fourth Brigade, which started from the area marked with crosses on the left hand side.
This offensive consisted of attacks by the allied forces at Lone Pine to the south, The Nek in the middle, and a two-pronged attack on the main Sari Bair Ridge to the north.
The attack on the right hand prong of the attack, by New Zealanders, was quite successful at the start, but the left hand prong, by Australian, British and Indian troops was nothing short of a disaster. The maps were incorrect and no proper preliminary reconnaissance had been carried out. The attack started at night on 8th August and a major error in navigation meant that progress in the hilly rough terrain and thick scrub was very slow, particularly for the Australian Fourth Brigade comprising the 13th to 16th Battalions. The result of the mismanagement was that the Australian troops were stranded well short of their objective (Hill 971) on the first day and were overlooked by Turkish troops with machine guns stationed on a nearby hill. The troops were ordered to withdraw after they had suffered serious casualties (the 15th Battalion had started the attack with 850 men but it had only 280 after the withdrawal).
Problems for the Fourth Brigade were compounded between 21st and 27th August when they were ordered to attack Hill 60, with similar disastrous results.
Sickness
Here is a photo of the 16th Battalion, taken in November. It had started with a strength of nearly 1,000, but the photo shows the survivors, numbering 200 at most.
In addition to the aspect that the terrain was much rougher than expected, the Australian troops, who had spent three months at Anzac Cove in appalling conditions, were in poor physical shape. Many were suffering from dysentery, and were malnourished (at Gallipoli over half of the casualties were due to sickness and disease rather than combat).
James Henry Lenton die s
James was killed on either 8th August or between 21st and 28th August and is recorded on the Lone Pine Memorial (see below).
Lone Pine Memorial
Below is a photo of the Lone Pine Memorial.
The caption at the top is “TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LASTING MEMORIAL OF 3,268 AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS WHO FOUGHT ON GALLIPOLI AND HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVES,AND 456 NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS WHOSE NAMES ARE NOT RECORDED IN OTHER AREAS OF THE PENINSULAR BUT WHO FELL IN THE ANZAC AREA AND HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVES; AND ALSO 960 AUSTRALIANS AND 252 NEW ZEALANDERS WHO, FIGHTING ON GALIPOLI IN 1915 , INCURRED MORTAL WOUNDS OR SICKNESS AND FOUND BURIAL AT SEA.
To the right is a photo of the brief entry for James.
Charles Joseph Lenton
We now return to Charles Joseph Lenton, recovering from shell shock in a Cairo hospital.
Some months later, in France, he was assigned to the Fourth Machine Gun Company, which provided machine gun coverage to the Fourth Brigade in which he was previously an infantry soldier.
There were two types of machine guns used, the Vickers and Lewis guns. The Lewis guns were lighter and could be carried by individual infantry soldiers, whereas the Vickers guns were heavier and were operated by the Brigade’s Machine Gun Company.
The Vickers gun itself weighed 25-30 pounds (11-13 kg), the stand weighed 40-50 pounds (18-23 kg) and an ammunition box holding 250 bullets on a belt (a 30 second supply) weighed 22 pounds (10kg). The guns and ammunition boxes had to be carried over broken ground as fast as possible to set the weapons up and replenish the ammunition.
The guns were formidable weapons which had a firing rate of about 450 rounds per second and a range of over 1,000 metres. For their part the Germans had Maxim machine guns which were almost identical.
A Machine Gun Company worked as a unit (rather than, for instance, providing individual gunners for separate platoons) and the guns were grouped together to provide a cohesive field of gunfire. This made them more effective but also, because the guns were grouped together, this made the gunners more susceptible to artillery fire specifically aimed at them.
Battle of Mouquet Farm
Here is a locality map of the Pozieres and Mouquet Farm area, to the south, and the Fromelles area to the north. Also, Villers Bretonneux (see later) is slightly to the west.
The Australian troops had been taking a battering in France, starting particularly with the Battle of Fromelles (involving the Fifth Division) in July 1916. Very soon after this Battle the First Division took part in the infamous Battle of Pozieres, where that Division suffered very heavy casualties. This Battle then progressed to the adjacent Battle of Mouquet Farm, where the Fourth Brigade took over from the exhausted First Division and was making good progress in attacking the “Park Lane” area when Charles was killed on the second day.
Mouquet Farm
Here are photos of Mouquet Farm before and after the Battle.
Mouquet Farm was rather deceptive because the Germans had excavated underneath it so that it could hold up to 200 soldiers.
Mouquet Farm was the site of nine separate attacks by three Australian divisions between 8 August and 3 September 1916. The farm stood in a dominating position on a ridge that extended north-west from the ruined, and much fought over, village of Pozieres. The farm buildings themselves were reduced to rubble. The attacks mounted against Mouquet Farm cost the 1st, 2nd and 4th Australian Divisions over 11,000 casualties, and not one succeeded in capturing and holding it. The British advance eventually bypassed Mouquet Farm leaving it an isolated outpost. It fell, inevitably, on 27 September 1916.
Although the cause of Charles’s death was not registered on his war records it is apparent that he was killed by German artillery because he was not treated in a Casualty Clearing Station as being wounded, and he is recorded on the Villers Bretonneaux Memorial as having no known grave.
Mouquet Farm (above before, below after)
Charles William Lenton
Here is a photo of the Menin Gate Memorial, near Ypres.
Charles William Lenton served in Belgium in the Battles of Messines, Polygon Wood and Bullecourt as a gunner in the Fifth Machine Gun Company, finally serving at the Battle of Passchendale where he was killed on 9th October 1917. His sacrifice is recorded on Panel 31 of the Honour Roll at Menin Gate Memorial as having no known grave.
Battle of Passchendale
Passchendaele is shown on the far north of the map shown previously.
Australian troops had played a significant role in the successful Battles of Messines, Polygon Wood, Menin Road and Bullecourt (known generically as the Third Battle of Ypres) but the Battle of Passchendaele proved to be a notorious disaster due to heavy rain turning the battlefield into a quagmire. Charles William was killed on approximately the first day, probably by shellfire because his body was not recovered.
Conclusion
In a later article I will describe the military careers of other members of the Lenton family.
New House in Reynolds Lake Oconee Georgia
Sharon and I moved into our new house in on July 1st from our rented condo-apartment (only three miles away).
We had our North Carolina furniture stored in a POD which was delivered from another city early in the month. In addition, we had rented a storage locker nearby. We unpacked over 125 boxes and more.
