On April 27, two days after the historic landing, General Walker was examining the left flank of the position at Anzac, the ridge which has since been known as Walker's Ridge, when messages began to come down the line, such as “Reinforcements wanted!” “No officers!” “All shot!” and so on. To the ear of a soldier this sort of thing sounded bad; it spelt imminent demoralisation. General Walker sent Captain Wallingford to see what could be done.
Creeping along the ridge to the westward, Captain Wallingford came across about a hundred men, chiefly Australians, with a sprinkling of New Zealanders. They were lying on the ground, mostly with their heads under cover and their bodies exposed to the attentions of a Turkish sniper opposite, who was getting a hit with almost every shot. To all intents and purposes they were out of action, and as they had been at it under constant fire, since dawn on the 26th, it was no wonder.
As luck would have it, just as Captain Wallingford arrived a Turkish sniper moved on to the opposite slope, only about 250 yards off. The Bisley marksman could scarcely miss; the Turk was bowled over with a single shot. But this was only the beginning. The order was constantly being passed from the cover of the scrub “Doctor wanted!” “Pass the word for stretcher-bearers!” and similar appeals for succour. Obviously this was impossible. It was only inviting the bearers and doctors to be shot and further demoralising the survivors, who had been in a desperate position for a couple of days.
Captain Wallingford peremptorily stopped the orders by threatening to shoot the next man who called out anything, and telling the wounded they must lie still where they had been shot, as the doctors had their hands full down the hillside. “I am positive myself,” he said, “that these, orders came from Germans who were in our ranks. An hour or two after I arrived a bounder in khaki came running down from the bushes shouting, retire boys, the Turks are charging! I called out to shoot him, as he was a German, but whether he was shot of course I do not know.”
It was rather a problem! What to do. If the men were kept inactive in their position they would undoubtedly begin to drop off one by one down the hillside. If the Turks charged the chances were they would bolt, for the strain on their nerves for two days past and the helplessness of their position had probably undermined their courage.
Captain Wallingford decided that the best thing would be to charge with the bayonet and clear their front. But having decided this much, he admits candidly that a tug of war commenced in his own mind. He could not make up his mind to get up and start, for after all they were more or less under cover on the ground. All sorts of arguments passed through his mind.
“I said to myself, it is almost thirty years now that you have been kept by the State. Now then, pay the price! Then I thought to myself that I was a coward, but that didn't get me up. Then I thought of what my boys would think of me, and I was up like a shot calling the men to charge.
I don't know how many came after me, but I know there were some. I had only advanced twenty or thirty yards through the scrub when I was astonished to come across two of my own guns with the kit lying all round them and the gun crews stretched out on the ground dead or wounded.
But there was one gallant boy trying in a half-dazed manner to rectify the gun. I immediately dropped down, and was glad enough to do so, I told the boy to get some water from the dead men's water-bottles and some oil out of the bushes where it was. We oiled the gun up well, filled the water vessel, readjusted the ammunition, loosened the fuse spring, and she was ready. The boy then reported that the Turks were coming out of a trench on the opposite side of the ravine, as if they intended to advance on us.
I waited until there were eleven of them, and then let them have it. They got back and tried to kid us on to make a mark for their snipers. They tried round our left flank and our right flank, and twice more tried to advance on us frontally. Each time they were cut down by the machine-gun, which was going splendidly. From time to time they would run along the top of their trench, hoping to draw our fire, and then drop down suddenly out of sight, but when several of them had been bowled over with a rifle they got tired of this.
The renewed activity of the Maxim seems to have attracted the attention of our own men in the rear, and they began to filter forward one by one, until at 5 p.m. there were enough men to man both guns and to place the necessary flank guards.”
About 6.30 p.m. Captain Wallingford was able to leave the post thoroughly re-established, and to return to the rear. He recovered his equipment and received a slight abrasion in the ribs from a ricochet bullet, and finally encountered the Wellington Regiment advancing under Colonel Malone.
The “boy” referred to was Allan Henry Preston MC, a native of Manchester, but came to New Zealand in 1910, and worked in the Gisborne district until 1914. He was in Hawke's Bay when the war broke out, enlisting with the Main Body, B Company, and was attached to the 9th Hawke's Bay Regiment in the machine section. Ten days after the 27th April battle, Preston was granted a field commission. (Killed in action 7 June 1917)
The officer who commanded the two machine guns, which had been cut off in the advance, was Lieutenant Wilson of Wellington, who along with all the non-coms of the machine-gun section were killed on the first day. For five weeks, Wilson’s body and those of his section lay in the open under continuous fire, until the armistice in May enabled the New Zealanders to give them the burial they deserved.
Another of Wallingford's machine-gunners to receive a commission in July 1915 was 2nd Lieutenant A. T. Atkins who was given a commission in the Imperial Army, being posted to the Middlesex Regiment. (Later he was transferred to the Machine-Gun Corps and was ordered to Mesopotamia)
The award of the Military Cross to Captain Wallingford, (Service No. 12/1125) was published in the London Gazette on the 3rd June 1915. The Citation was published on the 3rd July 1915, and reads as follows. —
“On 25 and 26 April, 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for exceptionally good service with the New Zealand Brigade machine gun and sharpshooters, and for conspicuous coolness and resource on several critical occasions.
By the end of June 1915, Captain Wallingford had been admitted to No.2 Australia General Hospital at Ghezireh Palace in Cairo, with “Post Influenza Cardiac Insufficiency.”
However after a weeks rest Captain Wallingford was pronounced ‘recovered’ and sent back to the front.
The following extract is from a letter written by Wallingford to his wife Alice (Possibly written at Ghezireh)
“I had a decent scrap two days ago, and. was buried with two guns, a sand-bag parapet, and all the gunners. Three shells got home on us, but nobody was hurt. It was laughable, and we were into it again in half-an-hour. I just gave my orders, and walked out as if it was spring-cleaning. I went to two more guns and there got a graze on the forehead. A nice little scrap. I have had a very good bag up to date, both with rifle and Maxim.”
The following clippings are from the London Daily Express, dated 16th July 1915.
“SONS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS.
WHAT NEW ZEALAND HAS DONE FOR THE EMPIRE.
GREAT RECORD”
