ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON  DAY 277/149/61: GALLIPOLI,  TURKIYE

30 June and 17 November, 1980  “Europe”

On the westbound overland, our first stop today is the fish markets at Canakkale, before our ferry departure across the Dardanelles Strait from Asia to Europe (pictured inside the ferry on the Dardanelles).

Canakkale has great fish, prawns and other seafood. There is nothing and nowhere to eat at Gallipoli, which features many cemetries and headstones of Anzacs and other “British” soldiers, who perished trying to make Turkey British under an invasion plan devised by Winston Churchill. So we bought our fresh seafood and silverfoil for a seafood BBQ for Corrie to make on Anzac Cove beach at Gallipoli (YUMMY!!!!).

Unfortunately, Les drove GRUNT a bit too close to the beach, and got bogged at Anzac Cove – not the first time Anzacs have been stuck here, Les being Kiwi, and myself, Corrie and many punters, Aussies.

We tried 4 wheel drive (the punters pushing the bus) to no avail. A passing Turkish farmer saw us, and backed his tractor down to GRUNT, but his tractor wasn’t strong enough, even with 4 wheel drive, and nor was a bigger local tractor we tried.

But the Turkish farmer said he knew a village with the biggest tractor in the Gallipoli area, and offered to drive me there. So Mustafa and I drove around the Gallipoli battlefield areas, passing graveyards andfter graveyards of Anzacs and other fallen British soldiers, with Mustafa giving me a graphic, rattling commentary, pointing first to each graveyard in the low areas in succession -

“Australia here!!!!”,

and pointing up to the top of the steep hills above, with a smiling, celebratory face:

“Attaturk here!!! RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TATAT”,

loudly mimicking the sounds of massive, relentless Turkish machine-gun fire hammering the Anzacs and other British soldiers below, represented by headstone after headstone in their thousands.

The Australian version from Roland Perry’s “The Australian Light Horse” (at pages 106-113), corroborates the Turkish farmer’s version:

“The noise was terrific, but not from the Anzacs. The steady crash of machine-guns drowned out everything else. The fire, coming from 30 machine-guns spitting hundreds of bullets a second, was powerful enough to sever limbs.. Many troopers were hit climbing out of the trench. Some managed only a few paces. …..

This amounted to more like mass murder than mass suicide. But not by the Turks. … The excuse that it was war should not have been enough. Commanders like Chauvel and Monash would never have sanctioned, let alone dreamt up, such daft and deadly plans that put their charges in such danger, especially if there was no chance of victory. …...

The Turks, led by Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, the officer most responsible for stopping the Anzac advance in late April and a British assault from Suvla earlier in the month, had his men well set up in the heights again on and above hill 60. This kind of operation pleased the Turks.”

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