HAZARDOUS WORK

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2550, 26 August 1915, Page 9

HAZARDOUS WORK

NEW ZEALANDERS' AT WAR MEN WHO WERE LIBERALLY HONOURED GENERAL GODLEY'S PRAISE ■ WELLINGTON MAN'S INTERESTING ,STORY An interesting insight into the hazardous work the colonial troops have undertaken at the Dardanelles is given iu a letter written by Driver William Sullivan, who is with the _New Zealand Forces, to his parents. His father, Mr. David Sullivan, is the licensee of tie Pier Hotel, Wellington. The-letter was written at Sitli Bisch', Alexandria, on July 8. It runs':—"' •' • ."At last- I have an opportunity of letting you kifow what I have 'been doing since I left Cairo three months ago. We got orders that evening, aud were away tho same night. Wlieu we hejrd about our.going we didn't believe it, as we had had so many false'starts before. But,this was the real thing. We (the drivers) Hitched.-nip our wagons, and at-ten o'clock we left camp for Cairo, and wo arrived .there about one the nest morning: Wo got all our wagons and horses aboaTd tie train, and we left'about 2.15 for Alexandria. Smart embarking—what? We arrived on April 11, and after a'lot of messing about, we left 'for Lemnos on April 17 in a ship called the Goslae (a German prize). After 'an uneventful trip we reached Lemnos on April 19. This sight entering Mudros Bay was one .1 shall never forget. Battleships and merchant ships of every description were, there. So we could see that at last we were going to do what we enlisted for. .Early on. tho Sunday, morning. we (being tho third and last line) left Lemnos. Wo were told the" day beforothat in the morning we would leave, and that we were to bo prepared for a tremendous and hazardous 'undertakingthat we would have to ■ force a landing under heavy fire. Thank goodness, every single, soul was dying to be into it, proving that the colonials were chips off the old block; About two hours out we could hear,the big guns speaking, and knowing the Navy .was on our sido and had made a start put a lot of confidence into its. . .. . ' Battleships Tearing up Ridges. ;"We arrived in the Bay (Anzac Cove), and could see : the battleships tearing up the ridges. By this time the first party had landed, and had made that'wonderful charge; Pinnaces with ships' lifeboats iii tow were coining back with the wounded, and returning to the beach with more troops. Our supplies went ashore that night, and the nest morning, Monday, April 26, wounded wore arriving about our ship, as the hospital ships were fu11... This made me realise what war was. I had a yarn or two with the npt seriously wounded, 'but tlie information I, got was ..just about.what their..little section had done; they were ignorant of what had happened on their left or right. Well, wo kicked our heels aboard, watching the battleships firing day and night, and shifting further out/as (we believe) the Goebeh was . pouring' shells from tlie other side. The noise of these shells, and tho. volume of , water they sent up, was enough" to make anyone feol the wind whistle through his trousers. But they all went over us or not far enough. On the Thursday we got word that twenty-two drivers were to go ashore, and I was one of the .lucky twenty-two. A torpedo destroyer came alongside, and we boarded her' and left for . the niuch-talked-of beach. .'/ After we' had visited other ships' for troops and had got a load,, we started, and about half a mile from the beach we transferred to barges towed by pinnaces. We travelled half the way safely, and then shrapnel started to drop. , Bio sensation: was, curious to say, not funk, but you wished to goodiiess the barge would shake it up and get alongside. Anyway we all. got on the beach without a casualty. Wo were ordered to go to our headquarters and get in dug-outs. I (with my chum) scored a recent dug-out; and half' ail hour after turning in we were both fast asleep. The Whole, time. I was on Gallipoli I never lost any sleep. We went ashore with an oil-sheet, overcoat, bandolier, haversack, .watorbottle', and rifle. I/thought my feet would get frozen with the cold. " . _ Perilous Quinn's post. "We were lip at four the nest morning, and at five wo started, for' the firing line. Along tho beach for a. quarter of a mile, and, then up a gully (palled Shrapnel Gully) for about one and a half miles; shrapnel and rifle fire on us all the time. The sight we saw as we .trudged up the gully fairly sickened'i us. Dead men and mules were lying at intervals all the way up..\ Of course, at this time j ther4- were no roads,' just the rough, sloppy gully,. Every now and again we would meet stretcher-bearers ivith. wounded, bound for ■ the beach. We -arrived at the foot of the position! we were to work in, and.were ordered'..to make dug-outs for ourselyes. The rattle of rifles; and the wWstlo of bullets apd shells was going on all the time, .that evening I had my first experience' of.the, trenches, (which then were no-, thing, more than dug-outs connected together).- We drove a sap out towards tho Turks ; w!ho were only thirty yards Mvay, while bombs were landing from the Turks where we were working. As Boon as they would see dirt being thrown .up, they would make that their objective. In a sap on our left a bomb landed m' the trenches, and one of tho dwvers who landed' wifli us; picked it up. and threw it out, but the tilling went off, and killed him oil the spot, Ms mate being also hit'. So out of the eight of usi who went oil shift'six came off., -Up to the time I left we had about sixty-five casualties. ■ Considering that there were about 150 of us in the firing line, you can see from this that we 'were in the thicks of it. I might say that iJiio position we were on. was called Quinn's Post;' and'was the worst position l of the whole lot, a$ we oventually had a fire tr.ench which ran from abojifc. .ten! to yards off 'the lurkish. trench. When wp dug tlie fire trench we wero ' . protected' by the infantry at the back, • and to hear our own and the enemy's fire'passing over us was hot tlie most encouraging of sensations.' At odd times a Turk or two gave themselves up,' and I really think we could have had : hundreds, biit they were seared l of the colonials. Many a one (whom wo thought of afterwards as coming to be taken prisoner) was down before 'ho could get into our trenches.. After what we had heard of thg Germans we could not trust a Turk. , Burial of 3000 Turkß. "Oil the 17th, I went down tlie gully with twenty infantry, as far as headquarters, to get timbgj; for overhead cover, \riien the Turks started to drop "o.2:'sliellii around that quarter. This was my first experience of big shells at close quarters, and was the nearest to funk that I have been. Well, 1 gave the timber to the infantry and sent them up. After seeing the officer about more timber, and sandbags I vvas not slow in getting back to the trenches. These shells, about forty-live in. all, did but little damage—l tliink about foiii-'casualties.' But when they exploded tlioy fairly' shook' the tar out of one, aiid clods of oarth a foot or two Lu diameter were tluWwu (forty foot in tie air. Sometimes that would

not'explode, and then you could hear our boys counting them out, and then giving a- great cilicer. On' May.2o wo had an amistico from 7 in tlie morning till 4.30 in tho afternoon, and of course during that time thero was no firing, and tho silence, was uncanny. You cannot imagine what it felt like after three and a half week's incessant firing. That day we buried about 3000 Turks.. Some slaughter, was it not? Hut wo were all pleased that the dead had been buried. At 4.30, activities were again resumed, and the noise was deafening. lam sure every soldier was firing. The Turks evidently took advantage of tlie armistice to strengthen their trendies. (of course, wo did not touch ours). This gave them a £ood start of us, for you can do a lot of work when there is no danger of being shot. The next evening tho Turks attempted to drive us out of our trenches, and they succeeded. Then a party of bomb-throwers on our side (after a three-hours' .figlit) drove some back, and the others trapped in ono of our bomb-proof shelters 'wore either killed or gave themselves "up; 12 killed and 17 prisoners. Tlie trench was full of dead, our bombs doing deadly work. J •Wo-eventually, cleared tlie trenph, and occupied it. A Wounded Man's Fortitude. "The next morning at 2 o'clock;I was called out by,the sergeant to go with' liim up a gully, about 200 yards beyond the outpost, to put up wire entanglements. ' Six infantry came with us to keep watch -whilst we worked, as ono can't work and keep watch at the same time. We finished our job, working as quickly as ive could, and luclLily wo did so wthout mishap, and I can'assure you I was jolly glad to get behind the outpost, again, after two hours and' a half working at the entanglements. On tho 26th I had just come off shift and was sitting in iny" dugout, looking dbwn the gully, watching the Triumph, when all of a sudden a cloud of smoke and water rose from her about 80 or 90 feet, in the air; Sho bad been torpedoed by an enemy submarine. In no .time torpedo' destroyers that seemed to come from nowhere, trawlers, and pinnaces crowded round getting the crow off. I think.if we had been ordered to charge the Turks then, we would. have driven them off , the face of the earth, ive were so raging I wild. The following morning ire were called to go on shift, and I was told to keep my head down on account of the suipers, as they had got on to our dugouts. Immediately five of our hoys were liit._ We rushed,aud got them but of their dugouts, and placed them in a safe place, but two of them wero dono for.' Wo got them on stretchers, took them down' tho gully. The one I was helping to carry was shot through the stomach, and the bullet lodged in his backbone,, paralysing his legs, but j ho was very cheery, even telling us to drop him and have a spell, . This is one of tlie mapy incidents that happen every day. , I liad nearly forgotten to tell you of. an incident that might interest you. It occurred'-the, 'night after'the Turks drove us out of our trenehes. As I told you, we drove them all out again as wo thought, but it seems some of them stopped in the crater made by the ex- j plosion, and during the night they start 1 ed to make a home of itf.by. sandbagging and diging it deeper. So our head sent over a party to drive them out and fill up this crater. They succeeded in driving them oiut/but were cut liu. - Would Not Forsake the Fallen. The lieutenant in charge would not leave the wounded, and as tlley could not possibly get tlie wounded out' over the top, we tunnelled to. them. The front edge of the firo trench was 18 feet from the nearest edge of the crater. Our shift cut that work out in four hours, and anyone who .knows that class of work can quite understand how we kicked it in, When we got tho men out ive started -to dig the crater deeper, and to'erect a bomb shelter. I might state that we were only about three, yards from the front of the Turks' fire trench. They, soon discovered we were working, and dropped a few bombs over, just to let us know that they were still in the picture. One. of these bombs blew a sergeant to pieces, so we left the place, and resumed _ our work oil the next shift. -After being in this p9sition for seven weeks we. were relieved and sontyto the beach, which was a Godsend. After, we had been on the beacli24 hours General Godley inspected us, ancl praised us up to the- skies. He told us that four had got the D.C.M. arid one' the D.5.0., and nine had been mentioned in the dispatches. Seven out of the nine were of the British Section, as were the four D.C.M.'s. There is one thing that I would, like to say about, the honours, and that is, that the opportunities to win tliem;are few,.,and then, of course,it is up to tlio chap to riiake use of them. . "One day an-OTder came that the drivers were to return to-Alexandria and get the horses fit for a big move. We arrived there without mishap, but with only two-thirds of the drivers who left Cairo. Although we were glad to get away from the peninsula for a spell, we are getting .fed' up with this slow job, aud are anxious to return to the front.".