THE NAMELESS DEAD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue XLIX, 3 January 1916, Page 3

THE NAMELESS DEAD

MEN "POSTED AS MISSING." THE FATEFUL ROLL-CALL. HEROES OF GALLIPOLT. In writing of the Australian soldiers who have been reported as "missing" at the Dardanelles, the correspondent of the Melbourne "Age" says : "I know no keener a.nguish than to have a friend posted as missing on the battlefield. He joius the ranks of the nameless heroes who have laid down their lives in great charges, whose bodies are swallowed in the waves, or lie imtouehed on a shell-swept hill or plain. Yet every charge for us or the enemy must mean that, at the first, the list of missing will be long, though careful inquiry always results in many names bein<r restored to the'effective fighting roll nven, or heroes will be found wounded In hospital or captive in the enemy's hands. Valour in such cases remains silent, though the mighty work goes recorded ; each hero's name is included in the scroll of fame that surrounds the dends of battalions and armies. "Only an armistice can help to clear up doubts about the missing, and it is seldom"' 7 that such are arranged in modern war. Then the burial parties can find the identity discs and papers that will establish the fact that so many brave comrades feared and wondered at. Those i who cannot picture a battlefield may ■wonder at this. To them I would say look at the pictures that, have been published of the demolition of the enemy trenches by the guns, and the buried, broken men. lyinp- therein. Imagine, in the fluctuating flood of battle, wlien the enemy is hurling line* after line of men to recapture these, trenches, trying to identify those men who gained the victory first,; and -whose! comrades now are striving to maintain their gain. "I have seen trenches where the -padres can but read the burial services over the sacred ground where our lads have fallen, midst their enemies, dying hard. None mav have seen those men fall, though still it is in this way that many cases are established, when, shoulder to shoulder, men have advanced, pal beside pal, and he who. survived can afterwards re ] a te—yes, even when the 'battle rages loudest —how his mate was killed. So another "name is removed from the fateful list of missing. WORK OF CALLING THE ROLL-.

"Were it possible to always know exactly what men left the trenches in a charge, or in a landing, made the charge on a baach, or leapt into a stream and stormed the opposing bank, then to reconcile the roll later would be less difficult than it is. What happens is this. .Men mav take part in a charge or coun-ter-attack, hastily arranged, and their exact names mav not he left on record. How then can their names he recorded in this action or that? They must in due courso be posted as missing: It will only be. chance if their death is revealed. "To the commanding officer, first of the companies,' and then of the battalions and regiments, falls the task' of forwarding the names to his immediate superior officer of the- casualties and missincr. as far as he knows them. Thesn-o-radiially drift down .through various channels with—in the case of Gallipoh, owing to the distance of the base away hesitating slowness to the 'records office in Cairo. Here, already, mavho have been, received the lists of wounded. Those lists are checked with the lists given by the regimental doctor who has treated some of the m:m. and by the iisls. too. of the clearing station on the •beach, through which every man should go, and does go, except in an isolated case or two. who' go straight to lh<» boats. But their names are recorded on the hosuital ship lists or in the base hospitals.

FEW PRISONERS OF WAR. i • "Later, much later, there drift in from behind -the enemy's lines the prisoners of war. They are very few. The list even now is but a few score—Australians will not be made .prisoners : their disregard of . death gives .no thought of "surrender. Only an ambush can account for those now in the hands of the Turks. So the men who live aTe slowly taken from the lists of missing. an'! those. li.«+ s sent ' back again, mneb reduced, to the men in the firing-line, when often ,it happens that men they believed dead are discovered lying wounded- in hospital. Perhaps a letter to a comrade will establish that fact much' quicker even than official procedure permits, and is possible. "Lastly comes the work of the commanding officers to gather round thrsm a board, which collects all the available evidence about-the men who have not been accounted for. Herei it is where personal statements are taken, and reluctantlv the fact is borne in -on the. minds of all that another hero must be added to the list of killed. 'He that increa-seth knowledge increaseth sorrow. ESTABLISHING FACTS.

"I wonder how often havo devoted parties of infantrv. and sappers due out small trenches and saps towards a group of fallen- heroes in ordeT to reach "and buvy them -with military honours, and stre'tcher-b:<3Ters risked their lives in bringing in under cover of darkness men from aTbullet-swept area from no man's and dead men's ground. .Sometimes 'wounded have crawl- \i back, as- did one ■man from under the verv narapet of the Turkish trenches on the" Nek. one of the few surviving JJghfc Horse men of the heroi-- Eighth who reached the Turkish lines and "returned. ■ Hs. as others have done before him, has 'brought back nfws of fallen comrades, and established beyond doubt the circumstances of their d?a<h. Their names are removed then from the list of missing . It is the Court that collates such evidence. Those men who lie on the field of battltf ' close enough to the parapet of the trenches can be =een and recognised, though often doom is to lie there in sight of th»ir comrades, their rifle 'bv their sides, until -as dust' to dust. their bodies sn-umble awav, and only the blood-stain-ed, tattered /faded Temnants o£ a bulletpierced uniform, -puttees and crumpled boots, remain in the outline of a human form. Thev are tho) honoured dead, killed in a charge, who must form ■ the great majority of the officially missing. BOARD'S DIFICULT TASK. "It must be seen what the task of, the board is. Picture these officers in a small dug-out, carefully examining" lists. however sliirht. unsifted, untested : no man unquestioned who will help tliem to discover Ihs truth of a fallen comrade's death. "It is onlv after' the most careful mvostiiation that, name" are removed from t,he list of missing. But the facts must be squarely fac:id. and I know it is a. very few per cent, indeed of those on the' missing lists who can be traced to hospitals or to tho enemy's prisoners of war camp; the errent majority must have their name* inscribed on the roll of honour of Australia —they arc the^ nameless dead upon tho battlefield. Yet— There is a tea T for all who die, A mourner o'er the humblest grave; But nations swell the funeral cry. And triumph weeps above the brave."