Hurst - Game to the Last the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion at Gallipoli

GAME TO THE LAST

T HE A USTRALIAN A RMY H ISTORY SERIES

(G ENERAL E DITOR : D AVID H ORNER )

Anne Blair	Ted Serong: The Life of an Australian Counter-insurgency Expert
Janette Bomford	Soldiers of the Queen: Women in the Australian Army
Phillip Bradley	On Shaggy Ridge: The Australian Seventh Division in the Ramu Valley: From Kaiapit to the Finisterres
Stuart Braga	Kokoda Commander: A Life of Major-General Tubby Allen
John Coates	Bravery above Blunder: The 9th Australian Division at Finschhafen, Sattelberg, and Sio
David Coombes	Morshead: Hero of Tobruk and El Alamein
C.D. Coulthard-Clark	Australias Military Map-makers: The Royal Australian Survey Corps 191596
David Horner	Strategic Command: General Sir John Wilton and Australias Asian Wars
Mark Johnston and Peter Stanley	Alamein: The Australian Story
Dayton McCarthy	The Once and Future Army: A History of the Citizen Military Forces, 194774
Albert Palazzo	The Australian Army: A History of its Organisation 19012001
Peter S. Sadler	The Paladin: A Life of Major-General Sir John Gellibrand
Michael B. Tyquin	Neville Howse: Australias First Victoria Cross Winner
Glenn Wahlert	The Other Enemy? Australian Soldiers and the Military Police
Christopher Wray	Sir James Whiteside McCay: A Turbulent Life

THE 11TH AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY
BATTALION AT GALLIPOLI

J AMES H URST

www.bigskypublishing.com.au

Copyright James Hurst 2011
First edition published 2005
Second edition published 2011

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission.

All inquiries should be made to the publishers.

Copying for educational purposes
Where copies of part or the whole of the book are made under Part VB of the Copyright Act, the law requires that prescribed procedures be followed.
For information, contact the Copyright Agency Limited.

Big Sky Publishing Pty Ltd
PO Box 303, Newport, NSW 2106, Australia

Phone:	(61 2) 9918 2168
Fax:	(61 2) 9918 2396
Email:	info@bigskypublishing.com.au
Web:	www.bigskypublishing.com.au

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Hurst, James, 1959.
Game to the last: the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion at Gallipoli.

Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 9781921941139

1. Australia. Army. Infantry Brigade, 11thHistory.
2. World War, 19141918CampaignsTurkeyGallipoli Peninsula.
3. World War, 19141918Regimental historiesAustralia. I. Title.

940.41294

Cover re-design: Think Productions.

ANZACS

	Some of you got the VC,
	Some the Gallipoli trot,
	Some had a grave by the sea,
	and all of you got it damned hot,
	And I see you go limping through town,
	in the faded old hospital blue,
	And driving abroadlying down,
	And lord I wish I were you!
	I envy you beggars I meet,
	From the dirty old hats on your head,
	To the rusty old boots on your feet
	I envy you living or dead.
	Id count it the greatest reward
	That ever a man could attain;
	Id sooner be Anzac than lord,
	Id rather be Anzac than thane.
	The children unborn shall acclaim
	The standard the Anzacs unfurled,
	When they made Australasias fame
	The wonder and pride of the world.

Edgar Wallace

When a man sees men walking about with no arms, pieces of mens heads etc etc it makes him feel mad. If the powers that be could only spend half an hour in Leanes Trench and see our brave men being blown to smithereens by the dozen, I am quite convinced there would be no more war.

Lieutenant E.W. Morris, 11th Australian Infantry Battalion, Leanes Trench, Gallipoli

D EDICATION

_______

This book is dedicated to those whose stories appear in its pages; and to the vast majority who lie invisible between them.

C ONTENTS

_______

M APS

_______

P REFACE

_______

This book began with the search for one man, a friend of my grandmother, who went to war and didnt return. All we knew about him was his name and what he looked like, or as much as you can assume about a persons appearance from one 75-year-old black and white photograph.

The search of books, libraries, museums, archives, and old newspapers began. I discovered my grandmothers friend to be an early enlistment in the first infantry battalion raised in Western Australia on the outbreak of the Great War, the 11th Battalion, and as I searched and researched I expected to perhaps end up with the bare bones of a dry, battalion narrative, from which I would have to try to imagine his past. Instead, as the detail accumulated and was compiled, a remarkably clear picture began to emerge of a diverse range of people caught up in, and creating, epic events, every one of whose stories was as important as the one I was chasing. To tell their story, it became necessary to re-construct from private and official sources, maps, photos and field research, the battles and life they experienced.

The story that unfolded was of over 1000 men and boys, who, on enlistment, found themselves part of the community of a newly formed infantry battalion. They began training in Western Australia, embarked for overseas, and awoke one morning to find themselves beneath the ageless pyramids of Giza; months later, they were leaping in darkness from lifeboats to storm the enemy-held heights of Gallipoli. Thus did an irrepressible youth who fought kitbag skirmishes with his section mates in the desert sands of Egypt come to be a dedicated machine gunner on the peninsula, accounting for more of the enemy than most; a wiry bushman and veteran of the Boer War come to be mentioned by the Official Historian for his disdain of enemy fire at the Landing; and a young, poorly educated reinforcement later commit his memories to paper to find himself with a bestseller that spawned a play and television mini-series.

Next page