KITCHENER'S FAITH

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 145, 19 June 1915, Page 8

KITCHENER'S FAITH

JUSTIFIED BY COLONIALS. NOT ONE SHIRKER. "I know what hell is like now, as we went through it during the last few -weeks." write- Private J. Sfianaban, of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion, to his mother, Mrs. J. Shanahan, of Papanui, in a letter received from him while in hospital at Alexandria with a wound in his foot. He continues: "I had four days' and nights' fighting myself, when I met with my little lot. I didn't mind the scrap myself so much, but the ghastly part of it was seeing the other chaps falling in all directions around mc. T seemed to bear a charmed life, and had some very narrow escapes. One bullet stung mc on the lip. We started of with a bayonet charge, hut it didn't last long, as the enemy fled at the sight of the cold steel.

"After that the real business started, j I was with a crowd that fought for i twelve hours outside the trenches. We had advanced too far, and suffered for it, hut managed to get back to our, trenches late in the evening. We were ! in comparative safety there after our i day's experience, but it was still deadi.v. There was no chance of sleep, as the enemy attacked us night as well a*. | day. We drove them hack every time, and their los.*-es must have toch enor- i mou*. We don't take a great deal of notice of their rifle fire. alinon'.'Ti they . use explosive bullet-*. It is the shrapnel fire that does all the damage. I can say, without bragging, that 'no troops have done finer work than did the Australians and New- Zealanders, the Australians especially. Anyone, to look at the country, would say it wi— absolutely impossible to do what we did, and now that it is done, I don't know how we ever accomplished it. Kitchener told us before we started that we were about to perform a feat unprecedented in modern warfare, and T am glad to say that we. have justified his faith in us. I never came, across one of our men who shirked it. All my mates were either killed or wounded. MeXab was killed outrisht. also hi-nt-other. Poor Mac was next man to ' mc. Another chap named Toohill was shot alongside mc, and one bullet missed j mc. and killed an Australian. A chap ] immediately behind mc was reported as ' having been killed or missing the first 1 day, hut turned up again like a bad ] penny." j