Bassett’s death recalls a Gallipoli hero

Press, 18 February 1983, Page 17

Bassett’s death recalls a Gallipoli hero

The death last month of Cyril Royston Guyton Bassett recalled a strange aspect of the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915. Considering that the efforts of its troops on Gallipoli are traditionally regarded as stirring New Zealand's first strong sense of identity and nationhood, it is astonishing in retrospect that Mr Bassett was the only New Zealander to win a Victoria Cross in the whole campaign. There were Old Digs prepared to ascribe this to blatant favouritism by the regular army British commanders and their contempt for “amateur and colonial” soldiers. Evidence for such an attitude, was available and with better rapport between commanders and led, more Victoria Crosses might have been awarded. New Zealand soldiers serving in France later were better treated.

Several years later, Mr Bassett commented: 1 ! was a bit disappointed to find I was the only New Zealander to get one on Gallipoli, because hundreds of Victoria Crosses should have been. won there.”

He was a 23-year-old corporal in the New Zealand Divisional Signal Company

when he went into action at Chunuk Bair on August 7. Since landing at Anzac Cove on April 25, the New Zealand soldiers had endured heat, flies, dust, filth, thirst, and all the other horrors of Gallipoli Pensinsula at the height of the Mediterranean summer. They were still confident, and proud, but exhausted. They were to make one final effort to capture the rocky summit of Chunuk Bair which, if not exactly the key to the whole campaign, would have established the Allies on the crest of the Peninsula and greatly improved the chances of cutting off much of the Turkish garrison and capturing the lower section of the Peninsula.

It proved to be a last gasp for the Anzacs. They held part of Chunuk Bair for three days, before being pushed back to their starting lines at Rhododendron Spur, by greatly superior numbers of Turks. They stuck at Rhododendron Spur until the evacuation of Gallipoli in December, but . were too exhausted to do more.

The only elements of the Allied troops to reach the crest of Chunuk Bair on

August 7 were from the .Wellington Regiment and 7th Gloucesters. They were joined by parties from the Auckland and Otago Regiments and hung on in the Turkish trenches. It has never been clear how many men were there. They stayed for three days against a succession of attacks from infantry, supported by shells and shrapnel. Efforts to reinforce them were mown down by Turkish troops higher along the ridge. They had no water, no shelter, but for three days, lived on hope. Finally, the unwounded and walking wounded remnants retired.

It was during this struggle that Corporal Bassett won his V.C. He volunteered to carry a telephone line up on to the ridge. The “Official History” recounts what happened. “In full daylight, with the approach swept by rifle and machine-gun fire and with the Turkish field artillery .. mercilessly searching the slopes, Bassett dashed and then,crept, then dashed, and crept again, up to the forward line on Chunuk. These lines were cut again and again, but Bassett and his

fellow linesmen of the signals went out day and night to mend the broken w’ires. “No V.C. on the Peninsula was more consistently earned. This was not for one brilliant act of bravery, but for a full week of ceaseless devotion.”

At an Anzac Day service 50 years later, Mr Bassett explained how he had lived through it: “It was just that I was so short that the bullets passed over me.” By 1918 and the end of the war, Bassett had also fought in France, and won the D.S.O. He had been wounded twice and risen to the rank of lieutenant. In the New Zealand Division in those days, promotion was based largely on capability, survival and the opinions of fellow-soldiers. For him to become an officer shows the esteem in which he must have been held. In July. 1940, Mr Bassett resumed service with the National Military Reserve in the New Zealand Corps of Signals. In 1943, he retired as commanding officer, Northern District signals.

He was a bank officer in civilian life, being manager,

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

of the Town Hall branch of the National Bank in Auckland from 1931-51. He retired to Devonport and is survived by his wife and two daughters. In his later years he was much in demand for documentaries on New Zealand's involvement in the First World War. Material on his experiences is held by Television New Zealand, the Alexander Turnbull Library, and several researchers. If not the last link, he was certainly a major link with a major event in New Zealand’s history.