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Tel el Saba - Palestine

Tel el Saba was a Turkish held artillery position on Oct 31st 1918 when British and Anzac units attacked Beersheba
The hillock on right horizon in the shot is Tel el Saba which was a Turkish artillery position taken on 31st Oct 1918 by the Anzac Light Horse with support from an HAC battery. This shot is taken from a ridge about 400m to the east which still has, to my eye at least, evidence of gunpits. The low ground to left of centre is the plain across which the Australian Light Horse made their famous charge to capture the town itself.
The site was a fortified city in 9th C. BC and was almost certainly referred to in the Bible in 2 Kings 18:13-19:37 when Sennacherib, King of Assyria captured King Hezekiah and destroyed 46 of his walled cities in 701 BC. Later it was the site of a fort built by Herod and a later Roman settlement and is best known to us as Beersheba.
This is described on the The Taylor Prism which is a six-sided baked clay document (or prism) discovered at the Assyrian capital Nineveh, in an area known today as Nebi Yunus. It was acquired by Colonel R. Taylor, British Consul General at Baghdad, in 1830, after whom it is named. The British Museum purchased it from Taylor's widow in 1855. As one of the first major Assyrian documents found, this document played an important part in the decipherment of the cuneiform script.
It describes the campaigns of King Sennacherib (704-681 BC0 thus
As for Hezekiah the Judahite, who did not submit to my yoke: forty-six of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small towns in their area, which were without number, by levelling with battering-rams and by bringing up seige-engines, and by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels, and breeches, I besieged and took them. 200, 150 people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, cattle and sheep without number, I brought away from them and counted as spoil. (Hezekiah) himself, like a caged bird I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. I threw up earthworks against him

© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com

Bullecourt

Looking east towards Riencourt les Cagnicourt
Designed as a diversionary attack whilst the British attacked Srras on 9th April 1917, it was intended to catch assumed German retreat eastwards from Arras.
62/Div W. Riding to attack west of Bullecourt and 4/Aus. Div to attack to east with tanks supporting both attacks. Maj.Gen White of 1/Anzac Corps wanted Queant to the east attacked as well as was concerned about enfilading German artillery fire: was assured that this artillery would be destroyed though attack delayed until 12th to enable this process.
Initial success at Arras encouraged Gough to bring attack forward to 0430 on 10th. PLan was for 12 tanks to advance without artillery barrage with troops behind. In event tanks got lost and attack postponed for 24 hrs. On 11th only three tanks arrived and none reached the objectives being attacked: however Australians advanced nonetheless and by 0700 had taken all their assigned positions.
1000 Germans counter-attacked and thrua

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Sgt. Alvin C York, Medal of Honour

Sgt. Alvin York: Medal of Honour
On Oct 8th 1918 2/Batt 328/Infantry was ordered to attack west from Ch-Ch towards a railway which was suppling the German forces encircling elements of 308/Infantry of 77/Division - the Lost Battalion - near Binarville.
Cpl. Alvin York managed to penetrate the German lines to the south of his units line of advance where he came under fire from a machine gun: York returned fire with his rifle and when charged by a group of Germans proceeded to shoot them with his.45 Colt automatic. In all he killed 21 men and then with the remnants of his squad took 132 Germans as prisoner and it was for this feat he received the Medal of Honour.
THis is the track along which York marched his 132 captives

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