CPD

March 1st 1916

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It has been delightful to receive a visit from Lieut. Patrick Duff (RFA) on his safe return from the Gallipoli campaign. He is kindly allowing us to publish extracts from the diary he kept at the time.

The entries below cover the events from December 30th until January 9th, when he was evacuated.

Any starred space has been censored to meet the requirements of paragraph 453, King’s Regulations.

Lieut. Pat Duff

30/12/15. “I think there is very little doubt that we are going. I write this in the middle of a large expenditure of ammunition on what seems a useless target, just, I take it, to get rid of the stuff…

It is quite exciting and I have no sentimental objection to leaving Gallipoli, as the show is obviously a failure, and we shall see another war in a new country…

31/12/15. Ordered to remove two guns today; spent busy morning packing heavier kit and arranging about despatch of my two guns…

At W Beach delivered two guns, two G.S. wagons and four gharries with men’s kit and some of my own on lighters, and saw them safely off. Rather tired and sleepy as we are having pretty hard days and nights. Write this at 3 a.m. smoking a cigar instead of going to bed, feel absolutely dead tired in the mornings, but the coldness of the night keeps one going for the night work.

1/1/16. We rode into W Beach to learn how to blow up guns in case we had to abandon them..

W_Beach_Helles_Gallipoli 2

Preparation for evacuation. W Beach – January 1916

Thank God we don’t evacuate every day of our lives; it is tiring, as one pulls about guns and heavy stuff in addition to getting no sleep.

General ******* sent us a wire this morning wishing us a ‘Happy and victorious New Year.’ A farcical epithet at a moment when we are in the act of sneaking away from a place we’ve held for eight months and in a deadly funk every minute that the Turk will spot it and jump on us. Took teams out at 11 p.m. and got to Clapham Junction in Krithia nullah about 12.30, having had to wait on Artillery Road owing to block of traffic. Was at W Beach at about 2 a.m., where I soon got rid of the guns. Back to bed about 3.30.

2/1/16. Am staying up for the purpose of seeing wagons loaded with oats, hay and our kit (We are all packed up, leaving out only shaving things and flea bags).

The ravine presents already the appearance of the abomination of evacuation standing where it ought not. All dug-outs have been left as they stood, but it is perceptible that the Peninsula is emptying.

3/1/16. We have now one gun, 58 men and all the horses. Probably I shall leave tomorrow night with our last gun…

4/1/16. 9.45 p.m. The wind is rising. We have got one gun and about 50 rounds of ammunition; if the wind continues we can’t get away. It is beginning to howl like the devil outside. I wonder –

5/1/16. The beach is in a state of disorder; I noticed that last night they had embarked nothing as there was a long train of 18 pounders waiting to go off…. All the ordnance tents were turned inside out, piles of stuff lying about in confusion… There was every kind of thing there if one could only have carried it away. Rather pathetic. Everything is going to be piled up on the edge of the cliff and to be blown to blazes by the Navy the morning after we leave….

Tonight the wind has gone, so that we may be able to get away. The storms here generally last at least three days, so it is nothing short of providential.

6/1/16. Rode out on my little horse with the gun about 8, and thought how I should follow the dim roads of Gallipoli by night no more. Some of the more recent arrivals hail the departure with delight; but we who have been here since the very beginning find it hard to leave the place. One knows it more intimately than any spot on earth, having moved about on it at all hours of the night, and dug ourselves into it in every direction.

Frightful crush on the beach. I managed to get a move on and presently brought my gun to the pier. Shells were dropping on the other side of the beach, but nothing close to us. The horses were unhooked and sent away; my saddle was taken off my little horse and put on the limber and off he went in the dark…. Got out to a ship and had the gun and limber on it by about 5 a.m., and so now I write this sitting on the floor of a cabin, feeling the wiggle of the screw and beginning to realise that, for the time being, I have saved my soul alive.

7/1/16. I have left nothing in Helles, only my little horse, which will be shot. I told ***** to take off a shoe for me.

Started back to Helles about 5… I worked in the hold until about 4 a.m. getting stuff on board; but got some sleep in the night. Yesterday I felt quite sick with sleepiness. Still calm, perhaps we shall be able to get some horses off yet.

8/1/16. Everyone thinks this is ‘Z’ night, when everyone comes off. Wish I were on shore.

About 4 a.m. the Chief woke me and said, ‘the bonfires are lit.’ I went on deck; on W beach about eight great fires were burning and the blaze lighted up the whole place. *********

****** suddenly a terrific explosion came ******* throwing up the earth in the shape of a huge fan about 100 feet into the air. Shortly after came another awful burst, hiding the whole beach behind the falling debris and smoke. Flaming splinters seemed to be flying about everywhere, some falling in the sea.

There was another fire on V beach, and I could see the huge wall of the castle of Sedd-ul-bahr in the glare (reminded me rather of Virgil’s description of the fall of Troy when the forms of the malignant gods loomed out above the smoking walls). Just around the corner from W beach another heap ************* was ablaze, and there was a fire on Gully beach. For an hour or more I stood watching the flames; the Turks were at first firing shrapnel into the middle of the beach, thinking they had set fire to something and that they would catch those who were putting it out. About 5 a.m. they seemed to realise we were gone, as they started shelling out to sea among the ships.

About 5.30 we began to move slowly away and the fires grew smaller in the distance. So we left W beach, looking likes the gates of hell, as it was when we first came there….

This is the end of the Expedition which was to have opened the Dardanelles, filled up Russia with supplies, and as we fondly hoped, advanced in rear of the Austro-Germans along the Danube. How far the frightful waste of men and materials will affect England’s fortunes one can’t tell, and just now it is hard to take a dispassionate view; but, results apart, I cannot think there is any enterprise comparable to this, except the Athenian Expedition to Sicily, which started with the same high hopes and ended…****************”

June 10th 1915

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Whilst many Old Dragons have been enduring the terrors of the trench warfare in France and Belgium, Lieut. Pat Duff, serving with the RFA in the Gallipoli campaign, has found some time for recreation and the occasional acquisition of luxuries; but even then there are reminders that the war is not far away.

Gallipoli Peninsula

The Gallipoli Peninsula

22/5/15 “I went and bathed on a beach facing Imbros and Samothrace, in beautiful clear water. On the cliff-edges were little wooden crosses signifying where men of the landing party had fallen at the first assault. It seems a funny thing to be bathing and enjoying oneself in the midst of all this, but one just takes things as they come and when one can enjoy oneself, one does.

27/5/15. I am with the Battery and living in the Eagle’s Nest, as we call it; incidentally not a bad name, as I saw a Sikh a bit further up the ravine feeding a young eagle, which he must have found here. The Sikhs are good to see in the mornings combing their long black hair; in this setting it puts one in mind of the Spartans before Thermopulae.

Had rather fun the other day; I had gone down to the beach and saw that the ship I came from Alexandria in was here. I managed to get on board and secure a bottle of fizz and a bottle of whisky.. Fizz was Heidsieck, and only 6/- a bottle because duty-free – you can have best brands of fizz at that price. Seemed funny to have it out here.

2/6/15. I had some plum pudding the other day which G’s people had sent; also the waiter at Buol’s had sent him a slab of turtle soup. This slab was watered down to make soup for all of us, and consequently tasted as if it was water that a turtle had had a bath in.

6/6/15. We have some long days now and again, getting up at 4 a.m. and going to bed about 1 a.m. occasionally; but sleeping practically out of doors makes what sleep one has go further…

The time one feels it most is about 2 p.m., when there is no shade of any kind; in the trenches the sun simply beats down on one and one’s clothes get full of sand; I got covered with sand and earth yesterday by a shell and it got all inside my riding breeches, annoying me very much.

The great comfort is having the sea so handy; by means of the communication trench we can go from the guns to the edge of a cliff and so down to the great and wide sea also without showing ourselves on the sky-line.”

 

May 27th 1915

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Attempts to break through at Gallipoli continue, where Pat Duff is currently with the RFA. Part of his job is to join the infantry in their trenches to identify suitable targets for the artillery. This, strangely, includes the Turks’ tea-time.

22/5/15. “I was in the observing station yesterday evening with G. We peered through our glasses for ages and could see nothing, until at last little puffs of smoke came out of one of the Turkish trenches, signifying that the Ottoman was making his tea.

This was more than we could stand, so we telephoned down to the Battery, ‘Action,’ and gave various angles and elevations with the result that the Turkish trench was heavily shelled, causing, as we hoped, AAD (which being interpreted means ‘Alarm And Despondency.’)

It is rumoured that the above condition prevails in the English Press regarding this expedition; not surprised.”

May 18th 1915

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Pat Duff (another of our 1911 Oxford Hockey Blues – see May 4th picture) is now a 2nd Lieutenant in the RFA with our forces in Gallipoli. He has some amusing stories to tell about our French allies.

9/5/15 “There have been some strenuous night attacks, and stray people dashing into one’s lines at night give alarming views of what is going on. The Frenchman gets rattled at times. One dashed into my lines two nights ago (being nearly shot by my guard).

I shouted ‘Francais, venez ici.’ He was a little man with a huge rifle and bayonet, and looked as if he were supporting a lamp-post. I asked what was happening, and where were his comrades.

He gesticulated and danced about saying ‘on crie, sauve qui peut. Rien ne va plus; les Turcs do this, that, and the other and I am a most miserable soldier.’

So I replied, ‘Courage, comrade; revanche, Marseillaise, Paris attaque, grande attaque.’

Upon which he took heart and returned whence he came, leaving me, however, a bit disconcerted, as that was the only news of the situation I had, and the shrapnel was very frequent and rifle fire seemed to be getting nearer. However, Frenchmen always get hold of the wrong end of the stick, so I decided to wait for confirmation, which of course didn’t come…

Great fun talking to the French tommies, and hearing how as the Corporal was about to bayonet a Turk, another Turk was just about to knife the Corporal when Alphonse and Pierre appeared behind the last-named Turk. As they go to kill him, a sniper appears in the rear.

‘But I am here, and tire mon fusil and lui make brûler la tête, which flees into two piece’ – whereat he waves his arms like a windmill.

15/5/15. There was rather fun the other day, though I didn’t see it. A hare got up and all the English, of course, leapt to their feet with fearful yells. Presently a French General came to complain of this behaviour: ‘à la guerre, comme à la guerre, et à la chasse come à la chasse!’  He explained that his enfants think it is the Turks who arrive when they hear the row. 

I must honestly say that I think this is going to be a long affair, but I hope to return some day.”