At the Cenotaph in Memorial Square, Napier, on Saturday, former soldiers recalled the battle of Chunuk Bair fought 100 years ago. Photo / Warren Buckland
Heads bowed low in respect during a service to remember the the battle of Chunuk Bair, fought on Gallipoli Peninsula 100 years ago.
Of 700 men from the Wellington battalion, bolstered by troops from the Hawke's Bay regiment, only 70 survived and the strategic high point was occupied for less
than two days before Turkish troops regained it.
A special service commemorating the August 8, 1915, battle was held at Memorial Square in Napier on Saturday.
The brief capturing of Chunuk Bair, which overlooked the Dardanelles seaway, was arguably the only success of the whole disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Among the six Napier Boys' High School old boys who took part was Captain Ernest Harston, who is said to have cradled and comforted the dying battalion commander, Colonel William Malone, after he was hit by fragments of an exploding shell, and who took over the battalion.
