10th Battalion Unit History - 25 April 1915

"At 1 a.m. the battleships and destroyers stopped on the sea between Imbros and the Peninsular, when the troops were transferred to the small rowing-boats which were brought alongside of each.  The small boats were made up into tows of three each.  At 2.35 the rowing-boats were full and dropped back in long strings behind the battleships.  At 3.30 the battleships stopped and the order was given for the tows to go ahead and land.  At 4 a.m. came the first faint signs of dawn, and at 4.30 a.m. the naval steam-boats cast off the tows, when the rowing-boats paddled the last few yards to the shore.  The strength of the Battalion on landing was 29 Officers and 921 other ranks.  By 6 a.m. the first position was taken by the 3^rd Brigade, although the Brigade was considerably mixed.  At 7 a.m. the Brigade was reorganized to push on.  At 8.10 a.m. a Turkish counter-attack was repulsed, and at 2 p.m. there was heavy fighting, but the Brigade was holding on to its position supported by the Indian Mountain Battery.  At 4 p.m. the enemy fire died down under ship’s fire and spotting by aeroplane.  At 6 p.m. all were ordered to entrench and dig in for the night.  All night counter-attacks and sniping by enemy followed.

Re landing at Anzac, Lieut-Col. S. P. Weir wrote under date of May 15, 1915: “I was in one of the first, if not the first boat to reach the shore on the never-to-be-forgotten morning of April 25.  We were about 50 yards from the beach when the Turks fired the first shot.  We shot out into the water about four feet deep and made for the shore, and at once fixed bayonets and drove the Turks off the hill from which they were showering us with bullets.  How so many of us escaped with our lives I do not know.  We had desperate fighting all day long, the shrapnel-shell being very deadly, but our men were game, and dug in for all they were worth with their entrenching tools; of course many were killed during this process, and hundreds were wounded, but we had orders to hold the position gained at all costs, and we did it.  We were glad when darkness came at 8 p.m., for we had been fighting hard from 4 a.m.  The shrapnel ceased then, but the rifles peppered away all through the night.  We dug hard all night; none of us had a greatcoat or waterproof sheet.  The night was cold and rain fell, but we never moved from the positions taken up on the Sunday afternoon until Wednesday night, and were under fire night and day during the whole of the time.  We kept the firing line supplied with water, rations, and ammunition, etc.; then we had two days’ spell on the beach and returned to the trenches.”

LOCK, Cecil Bert Lovell, The Fighting 10th. Souvenir of the 10th Battalion A.I.F. 1914-19, page 44 (source 213)