SPLENDID FIGHTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 230, 27 September 1915, Page 8

SPLENDID FIGHTERS.

PRAISE FOR NEW ZEALANDERS NOT A SINGLE WASTER. LJEUT. ALDRIDGE'S EULOGY, (ny Telcifroph.—Special to "Star. ,, ) WANGANt'I. tliis day. Lieutenant \V. P. Alilridge, of the Wellington Hattalion. who wont away with the Main Expeditionary Force, lias just returned, having been invalided home on account of a wound from a bullet, as the result of which lie hue lost the i-iglit of one eye. "The Turks," lvi said, 'are brave and clean fighters, and there is no truth in the tales of Turkish mutilation of prisoners. The Turkish soldiers are men of good physique. Of v batch of Turkish prisoners, about 2,0(11), which Lieut. Aldridge saw in Egypt, their age would be from -■"> years up, but there were no oh', men among them. Their ammunition is carried in leather bandoliers, and they are armed with Mauser rifles. The Turks had worked hard to make their trenches proof ag.iir.st our lire, ami had roofed them over with heavy timbers, in botic case, 14 niches by 10 inches. The 'labour of carrying this timber along tluir crowded s.ips and trenches and placing them in pusitiou call be imagined." With ii view to giving an idea of the country aroiuH Ansae, Lieut: Aldridge likened it to that inland of Wanganui, 60 far an it* broken nature is con cerned. Jt is not ■so high, nor are the gulliea so deep, but, on the other hand, the slopes rise more eteepiy than they do in tlic Wanguiui hinterland, some of them, in fact, being unclimbable. Between Anzac and the Achi Baba tion, however, there is a tine open cul tivatfd plain, and similar country can be ceen in other directions. The same applies to the salt lake area near Suvln Bay, where Turkish husbandmen were frequently si en ploughing, not more than 2,000 yards from the New Zealand OUtpOete. "We can always do with more men," said Lieut. Aldridge, 'even with rein forcemeuts. My own regiment wan never up to strength after the first engagement, hut, in epitc- of all odda. the conduct of rll officers and men has been splendid. I never »aw an instance of funk. The men wore always ready for any duty and for any sacrifice, and always ready for fight or for anything. 1 feel proud—any mun would feel proud —to have been associated with every man jack of them. There is not a •waster among them, and they have played the game right through."