Our Friend the Enemy is the first detailed history of the Gallipoli
campaign at Anzac since Charles Bean's Official History.
Viewed from both sides of the wire and described in first-hand accounts.
Australian Captain Herbert Layh recounted that as they approached the
beach on 25 April that, once we were behind cover the Turks turned their
... [fire] on us, and gave us a lively 10 minutes. A poor chap next to
me was hit three times. He begged me to shoot him, but luckily for him a
fourth bullet got him and put him out of his pain. Later that day,
Sergeant Charles Saunders, a New Zealand engineer, described his first
taste of battle, The Turks were entrenched some 50-100 yards from the
edge of the face of the gully and their machine guns swept the edges.
Line after line of our men went up, some lines didn't take two paces
over the crest when down they went to a man and on came another line.
Gunner Recep Trudal of the Turkish 27th Regiment wrote of the fierce
Turkish counter-attack on 19 May designed to push the Anzac's back into
the sea, It started at morning prayer call time, and then it went on and
on, never stopped. You know there was no break for eating or anything
... Attack was our command. That was what the Pasha said. Once he says
"Attack", you attack, and you either die or you survive.