AUCKLAND REGIMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 95, 22 April 1922, Page 17

AUCKLAND REGIMENT.

WHERE IT WENT AND WHAT IT DID.

A STORY OF THE WAR. Although more than three years have elapsed since the World War ended, its historical records are still being slowly compiled. This is easily understood, because the magnitude of the operations rendered it impossible at the time to chronicle anything but the broad outlines and outstanding events. Acts of splendid heroism were performed by men whose deeds are as utterly beyond human ken as the identity of the unknown warrior whose remains have been buried in Westminster Abbey, a representative of the thousands of brave men who fill unnamed graves in the cemeteries of France.

But, fortunately, step 3 "nave been taken to preserve for posterity as faithful a narrative as the circumstances would permit of the services rendered by the troops who left New Zealand. When the New Zealand Division was still in France it was decided that preliminary steps should be taken to compile the histories of the different units of which the Division was composed. We have already had the story of the Mounteds, and now there has appeared a history of the Auckland Regiment, N.Z.E. Force. The preparation of this regimental record was carried out under the direction of a committee, comprising j Colonel A. Plugge, Lieut.-Colonels S. S. Allen, R. C. Allen, and F. L. G. West, aad Major Coates, who commissioned Second-Lieutenant O. E. Burton, M.M., to write the history. The author has ibeen given a free hand, which he has used with discretion. The result is not a mere compilation of facts and figures, but an interesting story of the writer's own experiences, supplemented by authentic statements -escribing the operations of the regiment, anecdotes,

and colloquial word pictures illustrating the daily life of the soldier and his mental attitude towards the war. Lieut. 'Burton, although a pacifist, testifies that "in battle the finest sides of human character develop themselves —valour, self-sacrifice, steadfastness, devotion to duty, gentleness, and brotherliness." These are the things, he says, which should characterise the New Zealander. TRAINING AND CAMP LIFE. The initial 6teps in the training of the regiment at Alexandra Park, the voyage, and life in the Zeitoun Camp, are tersely described. In Egypt, we are told, "an undercurrent of restlessness moved the force. They might be 'BUI Massey's Tourists,' hut eight-seeing, even in the most wonderful land on earth, was not , what they had come for." Continual i training under a tropical sun was en-

forced until the men became absolutely surfeited with the monotony of it, and final embarkation for Lemnos and Gallipoli was hailed with delight. THE LANDING AT GALLIPOLI. The Aucklanders were the first New Zealanders to land at Gallipoli, and in the first -ay's fighting lost five officers and seventy-three men killed and nine officers and two hundred and eleven men . wounded. It was a gallant and successful struggle to obtain a foothold on a ■broken shore, where a thick growth, of shrubs afforded shelter for hordes of Turkish snipers and machine-gunners. The advance was made through a storm of shrapnel which pelted and tore through the ranks. "Smoke, dust, heat, the air whining, singing, trembling, with the screeching shells and the flying fragments, rifle barrels red hot with constant

firing, dead and dying all around —this was war." The story of the resolute bravery of our troops under their first baptism of fire arouses a feeling of pride and exultation, which is intensified as the history of the dayß that followed proceeds.' THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME. Another terrible testing of the soldierly qualities of the New Zeahtnders occurred at the Battle of the Somme. Here, the author declares "the New Zealand soldier took undisputed place as one of the finest fighting men of the war." His reputation had been won at a terrible cost. The Auckland regiment, under Colonel Plugge, took over 750 yards of the line, with Canterbury on one flank and Otago on the other. An attack was to be made across No Man's Land against the Gird and Fless system:—"Patrols sent out during the night and observation from the line itself established the fact that the wire was almost intact. This was disquieting, but few knew of it, and hopes were high. Zero hour was fixed for 2.15 p.m. on the 27th, September, 1916. All was ready. The steady line moved forward across No Man's Land. Down came a counter-harrage. Men were falling, but there was not the least weakening. The Hun trench was near. Canterbury had no difficulty—the wire in front of them was cvt —and they passed right in. Otago were shot to pieces. Auckland came fair up against uncut wire. Held up by the unexpected obstacle they were delayed, while the barrage passed on and left them. The Huns in the line manned their parapet, shooting, bombing and machine-gunning. They had the Aucklanders at their mercy. Desperate efforts were made to rush in through gaps which had been torn every here and there. The Hun machine-guns were trained on these gaps, and the attackers were mown down in heaps. All, with the exception of the desperately brave, were down in the shell-holes, sniping where a chance offered, bombing where they were close enough in. One or two Lewis guns got into action, but for a moment it seemed that no impression could be made. Then Sergeant Clarke, bombing a machine-gun into silence, rushed through the gap and obtained a lodgment in the line. Captain Alexander, Lieutenant Hogg, Lieutenant Ellis- ; don. Francis, Tribe, Lauder, Mitchell, t Whitehouse, Prendergast, Bright, TorTens and others won in, and now the tide commenced to turn. The Huns lost - their nerve. Instead of instantly concentrating on the gallant few who had entered the line, they wavered. Some drew back, some commenced to run. • More of the Aucklanders came in. A • Hun officer tried to rally his men, but was shot dead by a legless man lying out in one of the "shell holes. Now" the enemy were runing all along the line. I 1 Quickly the Lewis guns were placed on the new parapet, and the fleeing enemy mown down.

"Another rush forward of fifty yards or so and the support line was carried — this with little opposition. The objective was taken—but at what a cost: Eight hundred men went over against the Gird System. When the line ■was taken two hundred were left. Three times Auckland had charged as a battalion — once at Hclles, once at Chn-uk, and again over the shell-torn fields of the

Somme—and on every occasion they had 'been slaughtered by a cruel concentration of machine-gun fire." The subsequent battles in which the New Zealand Division took part are described with equal vividness, and the reader gets a clear impression of the terrible ordeal through which our brave young manhood passed with heroic fortitude. THE WAR AND RELIGION. Lieutenant Burton says: "New Zealanders were generally supposed by army evangelists to be a very hard type to touch—harder even than the Australians —and very little religion was apparent amongst them. He attributes this partly to the breaking loose from all the established habits of civilian life, and the conditions created by wax, under which " it was very easy to run wild —it was rather difficult to keep straight." "The influence of the chaplains, taken as a whole," he continues, "was exceedingly small. Perhaps the real cause of this ineffectiveness was the disunion of the Church and her utter inability to give any clear leadership on any of the great issues of the time. This mental and moral cowardice was reflected in the army. Chaplains always had a tendency to be obsessed with the fact that they were army officers, and to forget that first and foremost they were 'men of God.' . . . From disunion, timidity, lack of vision and leadership, the official representatives of religion failed even more deplorably than under civilised conditions to touch the hearts of men in the mass. Despite the failure of the padres, religion did not entirely die out." Notwithstanding this criticism of the

general body of chaplains, Lieutenant Burton, in the course of his narrative, expresses warm admiration of the splendid work done by individual clergymen, notably Padre Taylor, "fired with Christ's passion for all struggling and suffering humanity," and Padre Gavin, of whom he says, "the purity and earnestness of this quiet selfless man had won a high place in the hearts of all." THE GERMAN OCCUPATION: The last episode in which New Zealand troops were called on to participate was the occupation of German territory, and it is gratifying to read such a testimony as the following to their behaviour as victors in a struggle which had aroused the most violent passions: "Our men throughout the whole war displayed two qualities thai made them much appreciated, whether as guests or as conquerors. In the first place, they never smashed the furniture just to show how pleased they were, and secondly, their mothers had taught them to be polite to women. Now such politeness is not perhaps the strongest point of the English Tommy. The average Frenchman, though exceedingly polite to you as a stranger, has only an elementary _ense of the little courtesies toward women that the average New Zealander regards as the commonplace, while the Huns apparently regarded their female possessions as useful and sometimes ornamental chattels. If the further East one goes the less courtesy there is, then the Bolsheviks must thoroughly deserve all they have been, getting the last three years. When _iein frau" and the frauleins found that the men in the slouch hate gave up seats in the tram cars, opened doors, placed chairs, and were not even above giving a hand to work the pump or do some little thing '.about the billet, they began to look oh. 1 the 'Diggers' with favourable eyes. 1 Despite the strict orders against fra--1 ternisation, many men went to dances ' and other like social functions, and it ; was only the ■ fact that demobilisation , started quickly and proceeded rapidly • that saved New Zealand the necessity, of • assimilating several German war-brides."