BEFORE LEAVING

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 18, 22 January 1916, Page 11

BEFORE LEAVING

QUIET ON GALLIPOLI

THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS* CAMP

AIR-CRAFT IN ACTION,

(From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces.)

20th November. It is drawing on towards Christmas, and the weather has got much colder: It is really healthier than the great -heat, and the flies have almost gone. Unfortunately, though, we are rather behindhand with our winter preparations. Galvanised iron and winter clothing are badly needed. We are told they are on the way. The French have already made themselves snug for the winter.

The days and tho weeks go by now in comparative inaction. Five days ago, some Turkish trenches and a. bomb station in the neighbourhood of the Krithia Nullah, were taken by a coup do main without previous "bombardment, after the explosion of three mines. The units mainly concerned were -the 4th and 7th Royal Scots, the 7th and Bth Scottish Rifles, and the Ayrshire Yeomanry. The Turks ; had 80 men buried by the mine explosions, and also lost others by rifle and machine gun fire. The ships and the field artillery, by firing on the enemy's reserve .trenches and enclosed works, prevented a counter attack. There .werb 70 dead in the captured Turkish positions. Our casualties totalled under fifty. This is the main bit of'fighting for some weeks. As I write these -lines I am in the " Chateau Pericles," as we correspondents 'have named the little Greek houEe in which we occasionally reside on a near-by island. It is the pride of a little village that has scattered its rude stone houses, without rhyme or reason, over the shoulder of a typically Balkan hillside, and it has attained this pre-eminence because it is two-storied having one room' on top of two others — and also because it has glass in some the panes of its, few'windows. It has a clayey floor, and. thick walls of undressed stone, brown and grey.

When Sir lan camo riding up the ' pathway to say good-bye to us, he was greatly amazed at our little Greek castle, and expressed regret that he had not brought the official photographer with • him to get a, picture of it. We, on our- part, proudly told him i that it was the finest thing on the island since the time of Pericles, and from that day we have dated our letters from the Chateau Pericles. A STORM IN THE GULF. The worst of coming over to the island is that you are apt to be marooned there. There is a storm on now; and I am thankful I was not crossing on a trawler that has just been Bunk '—with our mails on board—in the Gulf. Fortunately, no lives were lost, though even- that is a small master in these strange days in which we live. The world seems all topsy-turvy,; but we live in confidence, for we • know that though one trawler or a dozen may go to the bottom, these hardy fellows from the NoTtli Sea and the Dogger Bank— scorning storms and even , shot and shell—will keep the way open for va till the crack of doom, if need be. The elements, as well as the nations, are at war. A blinding fiasli has just lit up the gloom, and tho crashing thunder comes like the sound of a 14-inch monitor's guns, only reverberating longer amongst the rocky, hills of the island. . THE AIR-CRAFT. . For some time now the Tauben have not been.flying over us, and the bombdropping Fritz has betaken himself to another sphere of influence. Possibly away beyond Salonika, on the Bulgarian frontier, he is finding something to do. Not that he ever did us very much damage on the Peninsula. The Turks, fortunately, liave very few Tauben, and the chances are that such as they have are piloted by their Teutonic friends.' We, on the other uaiid, have increased our flying squadron, and our airmen have been putting in some deadly work. To see one, and some-' times two, of our air-craft "spotting" for the guns, or hovering high a.bove the Turkish trenches, with the thistledown puffs of the enemy shrapnel bursting near them, is indeed a thrilling sight, even in these days when one becomes indifferent ', to sights and sounds that but a few months ago would have held us enthralled. A man hears the drone of an engine far above, and does not even take the trouble to go to the door of the dug-out to see what it is all about. Sometimes you will note a soldier pausing in his work, scanning the blue for a half minute or so, and then, aiter remarking to his mate, "Turk" or "One of ours," as the case may be, resume ,his job, with the blaee air of one of the " originallanding " men. But the Turk ha-s probably spotted a camp or a gun emplacement, and on the following day the enemy shells will be landing with a weary whistle from howitzers well down on the1 reverse slopes of the Sari Bair range system. There was one such battery firing—from the vicinity of Boghali, apparently—that sent ite eight-inchers along day after day, and our people could not get on the track of it at all.

Now that the weather has broken, our airmen must necessarily spend a good deal of broken time indoors. There is no use going out in a gale nor in flying, when you have to soar above the clouds. But let the winds die down, and the sun shine out, and then, one after another, you will see our planes mounting heavenward, and making a bee-line across the Gulf and the rugged Peninsula, even, it may be, to the vicinity of Constantinople itself. One evening, on the "River Clyde," at Cape Helles, I watched seven planes follow each other down the Dardanelles, for all the world >lik« a. flight ol birds coming to roost on "their island home. They had been on a serious and successful mission. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. Quite, recently the Navy and the Royal Naval Air Squadron have been biisy along the line of the Turko-Bul-garian communications. The naval guns bombarded the railway bridges and junctions at Bodoma and Dedeagatch, a road-bridge at Kayak, and the important 6upply depot at th« town of Gallipoli. The air-craft, spotting for the ships' guns, recorded four direct hits in succession on tho OalliptTli flour mills, at a range of over eleven mileb. Convoys and columns of the enemy moving near tho coast have been greatly harried, many casualties have been caused, and traffic on some of the roads has been made impossible during claylight. _ !

Meantime our airmen have been doing some brilliant work; attacking roads, bridges, and concentration camps. The railway bridge at Kuleli Burgas has again been damaged by their bombs. Some of our air-craft have succeeded in dropping heavy bombs upon Turkish camps, a plan that not only causes severe casualties, but also considerably affects the morale of the troops, especially when they are hash troops moving to the scene oi

action. A favourite ruse is to drop hand-grenades upon the Turkish camps, whereupon the Turks rush to cover in adjacent gullies, only to have hundredpound bombs dropped upon them with disastrous effect. . The other night a particularly brilliant flight of four hours and a-half's was made, and 1001b bombs were dropped from a height of! only 400 ft unon the railway bridge at Kuleli Burgas. ** The line was cut, and a .valuable reconnaissance of Turkish camps was made right up to Adrianople. "The flight," says an official communique, "is certainly one of the longest night operations yet undertaken by air-craft in war, and possibly constitutes a record." A DARING DESCENT. For skill, _ daring, and resource our airmen certainly bear the palm in war, and I doubt if our French allies, brilliant as they are in such feats, in anyway excel them.- , One day last week, on the Peninsula, I watched a plane calmly sailing over the extreme left of the Anzac zone and the British right. ' Shot after shot was sent after it by the Turkish gunners on the adjacent, hills. . Its lino of <lig;ht l was dotted with drifting puffs of bursting shrapnel, but the . pilot never thought of retreat. He altered his elevation, swerved- to right and to left, and came back upon his tracks above the slowly-drifting fleecy puffs of the exploded shells. The case of one came screaming down through the air, and hit the ground with a resounding thud only a few yards away from us. Presently a lucky Turkish shot got him, but from a herght of 6000 or 7000 feet he made a. magnificent volplane away Irom the Turkish position and out to sea, hovered awhile, and then, banking gracefully, returned shorewards, bringing his plane safely down in. the 6hallow water of the curving sandy bay just south" of Suvla. Disentangling himself, he waded to dry land. Stretcherbearers rushed to his aid, and a naval pinnace dashed shoreward. In a remarkably short time, he was on board the hospital ship. .' He not only saved his own life, but his plane as -Well. GOOD LINGUISTS. One is not alone in finding out that it is not alone Hie Germans that possess all the talents. Tha English are not supposed to be good linguists. . Yet here are Englishmen speaking nearly all the languages—Greek and Turkish, Arabic and Hindustani, in addition to < several of the European tongues. Just about tho time that an unpublished poem by Macaulay of immortal memory was being offered in The Times for sale in aid of some war fund,11 met here a relative of the great historian. As a matter of fact, ho is on the New Zealand staff. He did splendid work in charge of the ammunition s train when we were struggling desperately on Chunuk Bair- in .tho "sweltering early | days of August. Practically, he ran the whole show, keeping -the mule trains going day and night in face of .great danger* and sven himself carrying am-, munition into the firuig-line. Lord help' me if he ever sees the fact in print! He speaks Arabic^ Greek, ; Turkish, English, French, Italian, and German, and hg sketches delightfully, even under shell-fire. ,