CAPTAIN SHERA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 7, 8 January 1916, Page 8

CAPTAIN SHERA.

DESERVED PKAISE FROM lAN" . HAMILTON, Captain L. M. Shera, of the Field Troop, New Zealand Engineers, has again been singled out by Sir lan Hamilton for special mention for coolness and bravery in the course of desperate action. Captain Sbcra left Xew Zealand with the main body of the Expeditionary Force in charge of the senior body of Engineers. Recognition of his capabilities as mi officer were made early in the Gallipoli campaign. He was made officer-in-charge of works for defence and Aggression on Walker's Ridge. Here, secure in the defences devised by him, the Auckland .Mounted Regiment repulsed the most serious attempt ever

made by the Turks to throw the colonials out of Anzac into the sea. Later in the campaign his unit ..opened lip the way for theOtago Regiment in the now historic attack made in conjunction with the British forces at the Suvla Bay landing. The men of the troop tore out the barbed wire while under he-avy fire, and saved a most critical situation. A few days later Captain Shera undertook to devise defences for , the "Apex" position. Here works were carried on night and day under most desperate'and trying circumstances. One by one his men gave way under the strain, and linally Captain Shera was smitten with enteric. For weeks he hovered between life and death in hospital at Malta, and he has now gone to England to recuperate. : Captain Shera maintains strict discipline, and at the same time takes a keen'personal interest in the welfare of his men.