German barbed wire : Gaba Tepe, Gallipoli

Hook shaped length of barbed wire, which has a heavy gauge square section wire strand at its core, and long barbs.

This piece of barbed wire was collected from the beach at Gaba Tepe by the Australian Historical Mission to Gallipoli on 3 March 1919. It had been part of the Turkish defences around Gaba Tepe in 1915.

On 4 May 1915 Captain Raymond Lionel Leane led a party of engineers from the 3rd Field Company and over 100 men from the 11th Battalion, together with a medical officer and stretcher bearers, on a raid of the Turkish positions at Gaba Tepe.

Parts of the Australian and New Zealand positions were within view of Turkish artillery observers and the guns at Gaba Tepe. Leane's party were to note what defences protected the area, destroy communications and destroy any garrisons that might be there. Another group, under Lieutenant Rumball was to move overland towards Gaba Tepe and cut through the barbed wire on the beach. After completing their mission, Leane's group was to withdraw north through the cut wire.

To assist the success of the mission, it was to have been be carried out at the same time as a Royal Navy raid on the Turkish position at Nibrunesi, Suvla on 30 April, however, Leane's raid was postponed until 4 May. At 3.30am the party left Anzac on the destroyer HMS Colne, landing at Gaba Tepe as dawn broke. Although they detected no sign of life on the beach as they approached, but as they landed came under intense fire. About a dozen soldiers were killed and others wounded. The rest rushed off the boats, through the shallow water, and across 14 metres of beach, to the shelter of the bank that bordered the shore.

The Turks had a machine gun placed high in the trenches, which covered most of the bank, and more men were shot. Leane surveyed the defences and found there was no way to advance further. The Turkish wire was stronger than British barbed wire, with longer barbs. The only path leading to the wire was covered by the Turkish line of fire, and any attempt to reach it across the open field would mean certain death.

Leane quickly organised a retreat from Gaba Tepe. He sent a party of men to the northern part of wire that Rumball's group was to cut. They found two belts of wire. The first had not been cut and ran into the sea. Four men waded around this belt of wire, reaching Rumball's group through an opening they made in the second belt. Four other men returned to Leane's position. One man was killed and another was pinned down by machine gun fire.

At 5.15am Leane signalled the Navy to withdraw his wounded men. A small steamboat came with a rowing boat in tow. Stretcher bearers rushed the wounded to the shore. The British destroyers had been keeping up covering fire, but stopped as the wounded came to the shore. The Turks did not fire on the wounded making their way to the boat. However, once the steamboat left they began firing again.

Leane signalled for the Navy to send more boats to evacuate the rest of his men, and also signalled the position of the Turkish machine gunners, so the ships could direct fire on them as cover. Two picket boats arrived at the shore, each towing two ship's boats. Leane's men rushed to the boats as the Turks opened heavy fire on them. Leane was wounded in the hand, and others were struck by the bullets, but all got away. A soldier pinned down at the barbed wire was spotted later in the day by one of the destroyers and rescued.

The raid was a failure, but it confirmed the strong entrenchment of the Turkish position at Gaba Tepe, which remained the main observation position for the Turkish artillery throughout the Gallipoli campaign.