TROPHIES OF WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 31, 6 August 1919, Page 7

TROPHIES OF WAR

NEW ZEALAND v. TURK.

Two of the captured enemy guns which have come to New Zealand are invested with more than ordinary interest.

"On 26th March, 1917," states the official account of their capture, "when an attack was being made on Gaza (Palestine), the New, Zealanders 'came under heavy shrapnel 'fire from four guns north of the town,- On getting into close touch with the enemy, Major J. Sommerville, D.5.0., who was in command of. the right flank of the New Zealanders, realised that the Turks were holding on to their position in the hope of saving the two guns, which were only fifty yards behind them. With sixteen men of the Wellington Mounted Rifles, he attacked immediately, and, took the guns .with the loss of only one man. Eighteen Turks were killed near.the guns during the attack.. "As soon as the party commenced to remove the guns, the' Turks opened a, fusilade from a house on the high ground towards the town. Sergeant S. Rouse, of ■ tho Wellington Mounted! Rifles, got some men to help him turn one of the guns round, and fired two rounds of the gun into the house at a range of about one thousand yards. The hostilo fire at once ceased, and 47 Turks came out and surrendered. The gun was then drawn behind a house, and the enemy, from another house about a hundred yards away, commenced sniping at the team. Again the gun was used against its owners. It was turned round, sighted through the barrel, andi a round fired into1 the house, the result of which was that one Turkish officer and two men were captured from the much-damaged building. Before the New Zealanders withdrew, two limber teams were sent up by the New Zealand Machine-gun Squadron, and the two guns were pulled back behind the British lines."

It is, for this, as the Minister of Defence (Sir James Allen) pointed! out, that Sergeant Rouse was awarded the .Military Medal for "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty" during this engagement.