Chapter 67 – Jayjay

Charles Bean provides a brief account of the raid by the 1st Battalion, on 5 June 1915, in search of a Turkish machine gun at the German Officers Trench in Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 , vol II (p. 239-244). This account is diplomatically ambiguous as to whether the mission was successful in locating and destroying the machine gun that had been enfilading New Zealanders from the NZ&A Division to the north, and notes that many of the raiders had not seen the machine gun flash. Bean describes how raiders tripped over their own wire on leaving the trenches and confirms that of 70 men who took part in the raid, 4 were killed and  28 wounded (one of the wounded later died of the wounds). Bean states that the trenches were only 50 yards apart, and that the first Australians reached the Turkish trenches before return fire became heavy. The second party was in the act of leaving when the first party returned, so they came back with them.

The History of the First Battalion A.I F. 1914-1919 (assembled by battalion officers) provides an account of the endeavour by the 1st Battalion to destroy a machine gun that was troubling the 4th Brigade, including confusion about the location of the gun-cotton explosive and delays resulting in the orders to attack before moonrise not being received at the front line until after the moon was up (p. 35). This account describes orders to do as much damage to the trench as possible and claims that the machine gun was destroyed. For their roles in destroying the machine gun, Lieutenant Lloyd was awarded a Military Cross and Lance Corporal Davis was awarded a D.C.M. (Distinguished Conduct Medal).

Bill Gammage includes a raider participant account by Private F. Muir in The Broken Years (p. 72). Private Muir describes how they ran tripping over their own barbed wire and how at first there was no enemy fire, but it built up once the enemy knew the attack was on. Muir describes a well sandbagged parapet with loop holes and overhead cover, as well as coming under attack by thrown Turkish bombs. The whole affair took around ten minutes, with nearly every second man injured or killed.

In Gallipoli – The Fatal Shore , Harvey Broadbent states that after the sinking of the British warships off Gallipoli on 25 and 27 May 1915, the subsequent “reduction of the naval presence offshore further reduced the moral of the troops and commanders alike, which had already suffered when the HMS Queen Elizabeth was withdrawn.”