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Second Lieutenant Kenneth Leigh Walker
by Rod Martin
Aged just twenty-one when he joined up on 22 August 1914, Ken Walker listed his occupation as ‘farm employee’. He had spent eighteen months in the Melbourne Mounted Cadets, so one might think that he was an ideal choice for the Australian Light Horse Brigade. However, perhaps because he hailed from the Essendon district, and had friends there who were also enlisting, he opted to join the local organization, and became a member of 7 Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott.
Along with the rest of the Battalion, Ken trained at Broadmeadows between August and October of that year, all of them expecting initially to be sent to the war in Europe as soon as they were ready. Ken obviously showed his leadership qualities while training because he was promoted to lance-corporal at the time the battalion boarded A20 HMAT Hororata at Port Melbourne on 19 October. While at sea, he was promoted further to corporal on 10 November. Soon after, the men arrived in Egypt and transferred to a training camp at Mena, just outside Cairo. Their target was to be Gallipoli, not the Western Front as most had assumed.
7 Battalion sailed for the Dardanelles in April. By that time, Ken had already been appointed to the position of provisional sergeant. His record indicates that he incurred no demerits while in Egypt (unlike a number of his comrades, who misbehaved somewhat when on leave in Cairo!) This may have led to him being viewed favourably by his superiors. On 25 April, 7 Battalion went ashore as part of the second wave. Ken had the privilege (if it could be called that) of being one of the rowers in the first boat. As bullets flew around them, the men rowed on gallantly, all but one of them being hit by the time they reached the shore. On arrival, and suffering from a scalp wound, Ken found himself in officer ranks almost immediately, being promoted to second lieutenant to replace the wounded Lieutenant Walter Conder. The battalion lost eighteen officers in the initial attack and approximately 400 other men, so replacements and reinforcements were needed desperately.
Supply base, Anzac Cove, 26 April 1915. Australian War Memorial Collection G00915
http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/G00915
Now being an officer, Ken was probably involved initially in trying to locate other members of the battalion and helping them to regroup. Their target on landing was supposed to be Hill 971, a vital spot of high land on the main ridge of the peninsula, whence moves further east towards the Dardanelles Straits could be planned and carried out. However, the Anzac forces were put ashore in the wrong place. Instead of finding an open plain in front of them, they met very different country, described by Ross McMullin as rugged ridges and ravines covered by obstructive, waist-high undergrowth. While under constant fire, the soldiers had to scramble for cover and attempt to make their way up those ridges and ravines towards the first line of Turkish trenches. Casualties were very high and the men were scattered over a large area. Their commander, ‘Pompey’ Elliott, wounded himself, then struggled to establish what he called a rendezvous and gather the men together. It took several days before the survivors were able to regroup. By 30 April, Elliott’s command had lost more men than any other battalion.
Both ‘Pompey’ and Ken were out of it very quickly, however. Elliott was shot in the ankle on that first morning. He later wrote to his wife, telling her about the casualties, downplaying the seriousness of his own injury, and adding:
Sergeant Walker was hit on the head by a shrapnel bullet, and looked a fearful sight. He was literally bathed in his own blood but the wound, after having been dressed and the bleeding having been stopped, was even less serious than my own.
But both wounds were serious enough for the men to be evacuated to hospital in Cairo. They remained there until 27 May, when they sailed on the Pera and rejoined the battalion on 4 June. Because of their sojourns in Egypt, both men missed travelling with the rest of the depleted 7th to Cape Helles on 5 May as part of 2 Brigade to assist the British in their attempts to capture the village of Krythia. As a result of several incompetently planned and executed attacks, the brigade lost one-third of its men. No significant territory was captured.
The further depleted battalion returned to Anzac Cove (as it was now called) on 17 May and resumed its defence of the beachhead. That was where it was deployed when both Ken and ‘Pompey’ arrived back from Egypt. They would have noticed that many additional faces were missing from the ranks. Early the next month, the men relieved 8 Battalion in the front-line trenches up on the ridges and moved into a new position at Steele’s Post, above Monash Valley, on 8 July.
 Steele’s Post, showing dugouts on the lower slope.
Australian War Memorial Collection. A00745
http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/A00745
Steele’s Post overlooked an important enemy machine gun nest, known as German Officers’ Trench. It was only fifty metres away and could sweep a large section of the ridge with devastating fire. The Anzacs had been attempting to tunnel into the ridge and mine the trench, with some success. By the time 7 Battalion arrived, two mines had been successfully exploded – but the nest was still there. The Turks were concerned that the Anzacs would capture it, and began a countering bombardment of the post just as Elliott’s men moved into position. They also did some of their own tunnelling to counteract the Allied efforts and, on 8 July, they broke into the Australian tunnels. McMullin tells us that Elliott quickly sent in a party to stop the Turks’ advance. After some confusion, a close call with the Turks and ‘Pompey’s’ own involvement, a sandbag barrier was eventually constructed. Engineers eventually blew that part of the tunnels with dynamite and created a new crater, quickly called Dyer’s after the engineering officer in charge. Ken then hurriedly led a squad to occupy the new feature.
 Steele’s Post, May 1915, showing dugouts on the
seaward side. Turkish snipers occupied the opposite ridge.
Australian War Memorial Collection. G00942
http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/G00942
Three days later, 7 Battalion was ordered to participate in a feint to keep Turkish troops in the area while a major attack took place at Cape Helles. The men were to initiate a bomb assault at Dyer’s Crater. This led to a Turkish counter-attack and long-range shellfire, which then persisted for several days. Elliott wrote to his wife that the battalion’s trenches were “hell upon earth . . . [with] men . . . blown to pieces by shell or crushed to death by the masses of earth blown down upon them . . . “ Then he went on to say:
Poor old Ken Walker was always the first to lead a party to the rescue of those buried in the trenches, not once but dozens of times. For a long time he was fortunate, I often saw him with his face set and pale but never shrinking. At last three or four nights ago a fragment of shell went right through his body. Our Doctor did not give any hope of his being saved at all but news of his death has not reached me, so I am beginning to hope against hope for it was a frightful wound and the poor boy bore it without a murmur . . . Oh I do hope his life will be saved.
Severely wounded in the abdomen, Ken was removed from the line of battle, quickly evacuated to the beach and transported to the hospital ship HMHS Gascon, lying about five kilometres off Gaba Tepe. There he died at around 2.45 am on 12 July. Elliott’s hopes were in vain.
Second Lieutenant Ken Walker’s body was buried at sea. As he has no known grave on the Gallipoli Peninsula, his name is recorded with other Anzacs on the Lone Pine Memorial.
 Lone Pine Memorial (Source: Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
On 28 July, Ken was mentioned in despatches for his gallantry. The citation read:
The Lieut.-General Commanding has great pleasure in recording the gallant conduct of 2nd Lt. K. L. Walker who was dangerously wounded while leading reserve parties under heavy fire to dig out men buried in falling parapets.
‘Pompey’ felt the loss very deeply. He wrote to his wife:
I suppose poor Lyn [Ken’s sister and girlfriend of Elliott’s brother George] is very sad about Ken. I have been intending to write to her ever since, but feel somehow that I cannot. I think it would break me up completely if I met them. He was such a fine boy and they loved him so much, and he was fond of them too. And when I think of all these things I cannot write.
Sources
Australian War Memorial
National Archives of Australia
Lenore Frost
Carlyon, Les: Gallipoli, Sydney, Macmillan, 2001
Cochrane, Peter: Australians at war, Sydney, ABC Books, 2001
McMullin, Ross: Pompey Elliott, Melbourne, Scribe, 2008
Moorehead, Alan: Gallipoli, London, NEL Mentor, 1974
Pedersen, Peter: The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front, Melbourne, Penguin, 2007 |
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