SOLDIERS’ LETTERS

Evening Star, Issue 15892, 26 August 1915, Page 3

SOLDIERS’ LETTERS

Writing from the Gallipoli Peninsula ® i 1110 to his Parents at Port Chalmers, Gunner J. Coleman says that he had been eight weeks in the trenches and was now quite used to the new life. He was living in a dug-out with Jack Bennie—just a hole in the bank, with a couple of waterproof sheets to keep the rain out. 11 We think it a proper little home. It doesn’t rain very often, hut it’s not very comfortable when it does. I have not received the socks you sent, but I have everything I want, and we are better off than we thought we would bo at the front. I don’t often see the other Port boys. I got four letters yesterday, and am enjoying the good, health and good luck the letters wish me. I see by the letters you have not heard of the heavy Now Zealand casualties. We have heard of tales in New Zealand about our battery being smashed up, but you don’t want to take any notice of that. We have only had seven or eight casualties. This letter ivill have to do for everybody, as writing materials are very scarce here. Ihe Turks arc a “ scatty ’’-looking lot of soldiers, and if it were not for their German officers driving them on, the war in this part would have been over long ago. One day they asked for and got a few hours to bury their dead. There were acres and acres of nothin" else but their dead. It is very quiet here to-day; you would not think there was a war on at all. They usually come to light with a bit of shrapnel about tea tune,but it is very wild shoote do a good deal of swimming, but the temperature of the water is very changeable; one day it is decidedly warm, and the next it may he verv cold. There arc a lot of things I could tell you, but I am afraid the Censor would stop the letters. I like to get the papers now and again to see about the football; but I am afraid I shall not play football any more, for I am too fat now, and don’t seem able to get it off. Tho presentation watch I got fiom Burts was a good little timekeeper; but one day I forgot to take it off when I went in swimming, and that was the last of it. Good luck to all.”