AFTER 21 YEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 21, 25 January 1936, Page 13

AFTER 21 YEARS.

| GALLIPOLI REUNION. "BROKEN SPUR" DIVISION. FZJVNS FOR CRUISE. Twenty-one years after they were parted from their horses and were sent as dismounted reinforcements to the Gallipoli trenches, the famous 74 th Division are to set out on a reunion cruise to revisit familiar places on the Peninsula and in Palestine. 1,1 The company, who will embark at Southampton on March 9 in the Donaldson liner Athenia, will include MajorGeneral Sir Erie Birdwood, who commanded the division; General Sir John O'Sliea, OOtli London Division; General Sir George Barrow, Cavalry Corps; Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Campbell and Ma jor-General Sir Edward Evans, members of Lord AUenbv's staff; and Captain E. Unwin, R.N., V.C., the hero of Helles Beach, who commanded the River Clyde. Others who hope to join the cruise are:—Colonel Sir John Brown, Major - General Sir Walter de S. Cayley, Lieu-tenant-Colonel Sir John Gilmour, the Earl of Harrowby, Sir Austin Low, Major-General A. C. Temperley and Lieutenant-Colonel Viscount Younger of Leckie. Ladies who are expected to be members of the party include:—Lady Campbell, Lady Gilmour, the Countess of Harrowby, Ellen Viscountess Knutsford, Mrs. Unwin and Viscountess Younger of Leckie. Lament For Their Horses. Battlefields and cemeteries in Palestine, Transjordania and Syria will be visited during the liner's three and a half days' stay at Haifa, while at Gallipoli there will be excursions, during the stay of two days at Chanak, to Suvla Bay, Anzac and Cape Helles. A call will also be made at Piraeus for a visit to Athens. It was at Gallipoli that the 74th first became known as the "Broken Spiir"' Division, as it was composed of Yeomanry regiments drawn from counties representative of all parts of Great Britain who were sent, at a critical phase in the campaign into the trenches. After the evacuation, these regiments remained in Egypt, or in the Western Desert, where they were reorganised as infantry battalions and formed into the 74th Yeomanry Division in March, 191.7, when they adopted the sign of the "Broken Spur" as a symbol of their regret at the loss of tiieir horses. The Yeomen played a prominent part in Lord Allenby's campaigns. They fiaured largely in the capture of Boersheba and Sheria, which resulted in the Turks being driven out of their fortified positions and enabled the triumphant advance to he made. They took part in the attack on Jerusalem over very mountainous country, bringing about the surrender of the Holy City and the j seneral retirement of the Turkish Armv.

Lectures On Board. When the great German advance took place in France in the spring of 1918, the 74th Division were transferred to j the western, front, and, after much fighting, the armistice found them on the outskirts of Tournai. . The sentimental journey to the scenes of their Near Eastern exploits has an itinerary lasting 28 days. On board there will be lectures on the campaigns by those who took part in them. There are to be donkey ride excursions from Jerusalem, while the places to be visited include Mount Carmel, Nazareth, through the hills of Samaria to the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem and Bethlehem and district, Hebron, Beersheba, Gaza, Damascus and the roads to the Dead Sea.