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HISTORIC TRENTHAM

A SILENT CAMP

MEMORIES OF BUSIER DAYS The Upper Hutt Valley, in ft wide bay of which stands the camp of Trentham, made a beautiful picture on a sunny aftornoon in Christmas week of the year 1918. Never since the camp came into existence on October 14, 1914, the day on which the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces sailed, had the old camp and its surroundings looked prettier, and never had it seemed quieter. No sound came from it at all on that 6unny day lest week. Where tho bayonet fighters used' to rush and stab and stamp while their fierce shouts echoed down the valloy, tho soft wind sanp in the grass-heads and the cicedas shrilled-of summer; the wide sweeps of til© mode) trench areas, with their dugoutl) and duckboards, were silent places where the ground larks played and flirted; the spacious parade grounds held no marching men, no goose-stepping recruits; nor were there khaki squads moving to ringing words of command on the adjoining racecourse—for Trentham is closed as a camp of training men for New Zealand's overseas foroes. Tho writer of "Historic Trentham," which is the story of this camp, wrote in one of his chapter heading verses The old camp's lights are burning still •And brighter than before; The rifle range below the hill Sends out tne same old roar; But you can't hear it, can you, Bill? And you'll come back no more.

But the riflo range is quiet now; and though many good men whose names.were Bill will never come back, thero are many- who will, and their old camp will still be tliore. It,will then bo a musketry training school, an ordnance dopot, and 'a huge hospital where wounded or sick returned men will ho cared for and specially treated and trained to be made tit for civilian lifo again. At present Trentham camp is in the transition stage. As an Expeditionary Force training camp it is passing, its day ■ is practically over. And though the reason for tho quietness of the camp is one to call for blessing, since it means that peace is coming, thero is nevertheless a sense of lack in the sight of a great, deserted oamp. "Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot" was the air which tho cornets played as the troop-trains took the men back from military training to civilian life, when the armistice had made this possible. They cheered the old camp, too, as they rumbled away to a thousand different places in t-heso fortunate islands. Those who had seen thousands upon thousands of men go away—not to tbWr homes, but to fields of war across tho seas—could not help remembering the many events and adventures which had taken place in and around and in connection with Trentham.

j. Trentham Will Remember. It is not conceivable that any of those who have survived tho perils of 'battle will forget Trentham, even though, in the stress of circumstances, they cursed some of its And it is absolutely sure that the old camp dors not forget those who will not como back. or. those who died ei-q they went away. The first thing which strikes tho visitor to Trentham to-day is this fact of remembrance, for alongsido the main camp road are a number of stono bordered rose-beds each bearing the name of a theatre of war or of a field of honour where New Zealand troops have laid down their lives. Just inside the gate is the first bed; it as a mass of Dorothy roses, sweet smelling and rich; and half-hidden beneath the nearest blooms is a piece.of New Zealand marblo with, tho words "Historic Trentham" chiselled upon it. The camp's first thought is for. tlioso of Neii' Zealand's sons who died ot sickness within its bounds, for they died for'the Empire as truly as if they had charged at Chunuk, Bail- or toiled in pursuit of tho Sennussi in the desert, or suffered at the Somme. Samoa comes next in this array of fields of honour, and the rosea are blooming here, too, in profusion. Then "Suez," that name of history in England's .overseas adventures. Gallipoli is next; the Fighting Fifths are still Trentham's pride, for they went straight from the camp to the battlelino whore they fought side by side with the Main Body men and men of the older reinforcements from the old camp. Anzac comes next and Gaba Tepe and Helles; and then Chunuk Bair, with Red-letter Day scarlet rosc3 to commemorate that day of days. So come minia-. ture field after field of roses—Suvla Bay and Salonika ; France—name of inspiration— Armentieres, the -Sommo, Flors with its Melody roses, and Messines. Beyond these more little white stones are being set up in rose gardens. They road, Rafa, Sinai, El Arish, and Gaza, where the Mounteds fought; Mesopotamia, Mutrali, where New Zealand's Wireless Corps was stationed up till recently; and the record will not be complete till every field of honour has been represented, though the rose-beds reach away to the rifle ranges at the foot of the hill, for Trentham is historic with the human quality of history, and Trentham will never forget the men that her hands had shaped and steeled to the onslaught. Nearly fivs thousand New Zealanders have won war honours and decorations, and almost all of those men passed through Trentham. Besides, there are many thousands who, have done deeds of surpassing bravery which have gone unnoticed, mostly because the principals and witnesses of them were afterwards killed. Every one with a son or brother or a friend at tho war knows of such things and remembers them. And Trentham Camp is remembering them, too. Old Scenes Recalled. Not only in the camp itself but in the adjoining countryside the bustle that was, there has gone and tho silence of Nature is supreme. Out of the main camp gates, led by an imaginary band, we may go in the summer sunlight and hear imaginary boots crunching the gravel, while memory voices—not all musical, perhaps—chant' the old songs that used to accompany these marches bathing parade at the river. "Across tho railway and the main road," says the book of Trentham, "an old dray track swings 'down to a creek and crosses it by a ford. The soldier's road swings to the left and crosses on a bridge that is only a skeleton. Four planks about eighteen inches apart are all it boasts, but that is all that is required for soldiers inarching- in fours." 1 Down the slopo come those crunching boot?, and can you hear them thumping on the planks? And so, on- through Marlon's Bush, silent now, and across the clearing, where the Commandant ad-' dressed tho now troops sometimes in a sylvan amphitheatre—and so to the river. There was a favourite diving rock when the soldiers swarmed and splashed in the waters in the hot summer. It is still jjjhere, black in the blue, sliding water. And there are the hundreds of soldiers, too, if you look with your mind's eye, even to the soldier lad who (led from an amazed sergeant of whom he had asked the simple question, "How d'yo know who to ealuto at bathing parade?" These and other odd memories crowd upon anyone who knew Trentham in all its activity and sees it so silent to-day. Most of these are memories of sterner work than bathing in tho river. Night operations, field tactics in the valley between Moonshino and Silverstream, were •among them, when men wore taught to advance across paddocks or along a railway. They did so, with blank ammunition to add reality to the affair, and so far as the feelings of tho live stock were concerned it 1 was war itself that came into their grnzing-grounds, to judge by their wild galloping to places of shelter. The reality of the tactics was appreciated more by the men later on, when In the fields of war they got the word to riso and advance in waves.

A soldier who has returned to New Zealand, describing how this was done, said: "The thought came to mo ns 1 watched wave after wave riso and advance, ami mv turn came to go: " 'I wish Colonel Mac. could see this. T. could almost hear his voice telling us how to do it.'" Which seems to indicate that men thought of the old camp even in the midst of activo fighting. Yes. it must bo so; evoD tho grouser and tho slacker must admit it—tho days spent in a big camp yielded many pleasant times that will be remembered when tho hardships havo long been forgotten.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19181227.2.31

Bibliographic details

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 78, 27 December 1918, Page 5

Word Count
1,447

HISTORIC TRENTHAM Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 78, 27 December 1918, Page 5

HISTORIC TRENTHAM Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 78, 27 December 1918, Page 5

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