AT GALLIPOLI.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1915, Page 2

AT GALLIPOLI.

AUCKLAND SOLDIER'S STORY.

A RESOURCEFUL COLONIAL

THE LANDING UND^R FIRE,

INJURED AND INVALIDED

A young Auckland soldier who has just arrived home from the shores or" (xallipoli Peninsula is Corporal Frederick Allen Phelan, brother of Mr to. Phelan, secretary of the Auckland Timber Workers'^ Union. Fred Phelan is a young man who in half a dozen years of keen devotion to Volunteer and Territorial service specialised in the signaller's art and gained high certificates, t;he right to iiold which was confirmed after he reacbeai Egypt. He left Auckland with the main body of the Expeditionary Force on the headquarters staff of the Auckland Infantry Battalion, ana whs detailed for signalling duty with the ambulance stretcher bearers. He had the misfortune to contract pneumonia at Colombo on the way \o Egypt, and was for some time a patient in hospital at Alexandria. Corporal Phelan took part in the operations at the defence of the, Suez Canal, operations which have since been quite overshadowed by the titanic nature of the struggle at the Dardanelles. He is one of the only two in the last draft of invalided soldiers who had been at the Dardanelles. Others of the party have been invalided home as.being medically unfit, the same cause being the reason of .Corporal Phelan's return.

The story of Phelan's journey to Gallipoli is that of the keen, man who, knowing that he has no possible chance of getting past the doctor, brings strategy to bear to get over the difficulty. He had been down with pneumonia and was accordingly suspected as a possible "invalid." He eluded all medical inspection that seemed likely to enclose him within its scope, and got as far as Alexandria with the Aiickland headquarters. When the expedition set out for the Dardanelles on board the transport,

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however, the senior medical ofHeer caught him, examined him and sent him back. It was just here that Corporal Phelan, realising that ho hatl not a very good hand to play, tried bluff, and the sheer impudence- of it carried him through. He returned by train from Alexandria to Cairo, but instead of going on to camp lie re-on-trained for Alexandria and walked on to the transport. Xobody notieeu him particularly, or if they did they were too busy to remember that he had been sick-listed, and the tran^ port sailed in due course. The vessel was a Gernmn prize, a 9000-ton liner, and she carried some 2000 men. including the Auckland Infantry, some Army Service Corps men and Kngineer units, and the General .Staff, with General Godley. In something like two and a half clays this transport, with about a dozen others, anchored under the lee of Lemnos for a few hours. Corpot:il Phelan's description of the battleship Queen Elizabeth was "a big squat bulldog" looming on the horizon. She had a regular fleet of destroyers and cruisers about her later. The transports got in towards the peninsula and took tlioir further instruction^ from the waiships. At daybreak a start was made to disembark the men. naval pinnace-, about three to a transport, towing huge pontoons which carried about a platoon a trip. As the pinnaces neareu the shore, scrub-covered rough country rising steeply from the water's edgr, they sheered to one s!.•!'« and cast off. leaving the pontoon to run close insiiore. To make debarkation the more rapid, the men jumped over the sines, and on the shelving shore they frequently landed shoulder deep in water. '•Just as t)i'-« first pontoons wotrearing the* "shore,'' said Corpor.il Phelan, ''the guns began to go." The enemy were in three- lines of trenches very difficult to locate <>m the- scrub-covered hillside. The first pontoons wore badly knocked about, but the pontoon conveying tho stretcher-bearers and the medical units got ashore without a hit. Corporal Phelan saw Captain Craig, medical officer with the Auckland infantry, stagger on being hit. H:» remembers that lie wondered it he could got stretcher-bearers to the doctor, ami after that he kmnr nothing until he regained consciousness on board the transport, winch was about to return to Alexandria. His mouth was cut abeui. ami nu»t of his teeth were broken. Hit enn only assume that he had been struck by a stono or some missile of that kind. His weakness after the attack of pneumonia probably accounted fur the long .spell of unconsciousness. There were several hundred wounded on the transport ready to he returned to the base hospital. Corporal Phelan was ■returned home by the Ceramic from Suez to Melbourne, and with the other Ww Zealanders came home from Sydney to Wellington, by the. Moernki. lh> anxiously asked the doctor in Wellington about the chances of returning, but the medical man was not hopeful,, and spoke of six months of convalescence. "He said it v,s>ult! be that time, before I could do ?w>! work," said the disgusted M)ldi--r. "I don't know what l:e means by L>i:st