ONLY TWO LEFT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 27 April 1927, Page 5

ONLY TWO LEFT.

LAST OF THE “DIEHARDS.” A NOTABLE FIGHT RECALLED. The death of the Taranaki veteran, T. P. Lister, it was telegraphed by the Press Association, leaves only SergeantMajor E. Bezar, of Wellington, the sole survivor in Now Zealand of the old “Die-hards.” the 57th Regiment. This is not quite correct, for another venerable “Die-hard,” Michael Gill, is still above ground; he is an inmate of the Parke Jsland Home for the Aged, at Napier. Gill is now about ninety; his fighting story goes back to the Crimean War. He served with the 57th in the Maori War for five years, and when his regiment was leaving for England, he, like Bezar, took his discharge. He joined the Armed Constabulary in 1868, and he was one of the little groups of A.C. ’s and military settlers —nearly all Irishmen —who heroically defended Turuturn-Mokai Redoubt, near the present town of Hawera, against three or four times its strength of Maoris from Titokowavu’s bush camp. Out of twenty-two men who held the little fort ten were killed and six were wounded. Only Gill and five others came out unwounded when the place was relieved after a desperate fight. Michael Gill and John Beamish—the only other survivor to-day of that Rorke’s Drift of Maoriland, as it has been called —deserve some adequate recognition of their gallant stand, even at this late day, states an exchange. It was said after the fight, that Gill, who was one of the veterans whose coolness and competence stiffened the morale of the- younger fellows in the redoubt. deserved the Victoria Cross or the New Zealand Cross for his conduct. But the authorities were sparing with their decorations in those days. Now, his reward in his nineties, is bed and board in the Old Men’s Home • and his . pension pays for that.