THRILLING INCIDENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15947, 18 June 1915, Page 4

THRILLING INCIDENTS.

SOLDIERS' STORIES.

"A VERITABLE DEATH-TRAP,"

Many thrilling details of tlio landing of the New Zealanders and Australians' at the Dardanelles and the subsequent fighting are contained in letters from the wounded which are arriving daily.

"Crack! and a man would roll down the hill, right alongside of you, with a bullet through his In**, and then you would hear, ' They have got me,'" writes an Australian. "Our chaps were 'pilled' in almost every conceivable part of., the body. How the doctors and the A.M.C. worked! Dr. Bean was doctor to the 3rd. He was doing good work, but only lasted a couple of hours, when he was knocked out, and they hail to take him away on a stretcher. Only an A.M.C. man was left, and ho, too, soon departed; but he worked, oh, so well while there, caring nothing for the bullets flying past him while dressing the wounds.

"About two o'clock word came that they wanted reinforcements on the left (just near us), so Major Bennett sent all those who had strayed and had collected there along, Altogether there were two of our officers, a sergeant, and a few men from other regiments, and we made for the thick of it. The platoon of the 3rd was in reserve for the firing line on top, and ho would hot let them go, of course. On the way I had to give a hand to a man who had bean hit badly, so I lost the rest, and when I started off again they were gone. I didn't get very far. 1 found myself alongside a young captain. He said ho was exhausted, and,, telling me to take charge, crawled back. I managed to get my entrenching tool out, and scooped a couple of inches away for my head—it was all I could demand waited. Fortunately, I wasn't hit, and at dusk about a dozen New Zealanders came along, under a sergeant-major, and so between us we did our best. Hell! it %as a deathtrap.

" I made a mate of a fine little chap— a bugler.- Ho had ft brother in our company. Together we dug ourselves in. Nothing much happened in our quarter that morning. The ships' big guns were booming away and smashing things up, and machine-guns rattling and rifles firing the whole time, and every few minutes the word passed along, 'Stretcher-bearer wanted," or 'A.M.C. man wonted.' Oh. lww those fellows worked, and often went right into the firing line for wounded. "When dark a dozen of us went into the firing line to bring diwn dead and wounded. In the morning my little bugler went off down the gully with a sergeant after snipers, and I have not seen him since."

'"THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE."

INDIVIDUAL EFFORT-

"There is no question about the bravery of our men—they are the bravest of the brave," writes a Light Horto officer from Cairo. "It has been said that the bravery shown at Gallipoli might have been the valour of ignorance; but, having lived with our boys for nine months continuously, I am satisfied that thoy will always stick it to the last man, and tliere will bo no breaking strain with them. There is, no doubt that in .this first battle they did suffer to a greater extent than would trained fighters, through their reckless and impetuous bravery. The nature of the country absolutely precluded control by either officers or men, and it was simply up to the individual soldier to act upon his own initiative, and get there in spite of all obstacles."

SHOT POWfl ALL ROUND.

MANY NARROW ESCAPES.

Corporal R. J, Graham, describing the advance immediately, on landing, mid that the men were getting shot down all round him. " I had three narrow escapes. One shot went through the rim of my hat, another hit nio on the peck and bounded off, hitting me on the wrist. All the damage it did was to make a small hole in my sleeve, and a slight cut on my arm. A piece of shell went pyjir my head, and cut tho braces of my'equipment in half, tore a hole in my tunic, and cut two thirls I was wearing. About 5.30 p.m. the enemy's fire slackened, and we thought wo would advance a little further. I was just getting; up when I got a cracfr on the arm.wwr the shoulder. I went back to the beach, and had to wade through a creek, with water up to the knees, being ell the time under a heavy fire."

PROUD TO BE AUSTRALIAN.

EAGER TO REACH THE ENEMY. In a letter dated, "somewhere about the 27th April," Quartermaster-Sergeant Noonan, 7th Battalion, who is well known to members of the Victorian Artists' Society, writes of the landing at the Dardanelles, and declares Chat he is proud to be an Australian. "As the pinnaces discharged their loads they came back for more,'.' he writes, bringing wounded with thorn. Our men got very worked up, and could not get into the boats fast enough to plcnso them. A seaman from one of the pinnaces described it thus: ' When they got near the beach they hopped out up to their waists in water.' An officer said: 'Hold on a.minute, lads.' Someone else said: 'Damn tho officers; come on, boys.' They fixed their bayonets and charged up the hill like rabbits. • The Australians will do me."

"UP AND AT THEM." ——. "* TURKS RUN LIKE RABBITS. i Private J. J? Cook, of the 13th Battalion, writes that he went into the firing line at daylight on the Monday, and I " things were getting very hot." "The Turks charged us again and agaiu, but we cut them to pieces with rifle fire, and then when we jumped up to meet their charge they turned and ran like rabbits from us. "Their artillery was doing us much damage, but the Queen Elizabeth would keep blowing up a battery, and every time she fired a shell we all used to smile for the report shook the whole of the peninsula. One of her shells fell under a Turkish camel column, and sent about 20 camels into tho air. The other warships were doing good work all the time. . . . The Turks kept coming, and every chance we got we dug bits of trenches—but not much, as we were always up and at them. The ground was covered with dead Turks, and we had only lost a few by Tuesday morning; then the Turks brought up a terrible lot of reinforcements, and wo baa a hot time of it, nut kept driving them back. " Somehow a snipjr got behind us and shot an officer just alongside of me in the leg. I crawled out to return a shot, when he fired, and just clipped my ear. But I settled him. They kept up a terrible machine-gun fire on us, and then about ten times our number charged into us. We fired into them and then charged but I had not go le syds before I was shot, and fell with five of my mates. But we drovo the Turks back at a run

" Next I was down in the gully with a doctor Asking me for my bandages, which I got out, and lie tied me up. f made fop the beach with a mate who was shot in the hand. The shrapnel was bursting all round us, hut we* reached the beach and were taken aboard."