AUSTRALIANS AS FIGHTERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15998, 17 August 1915, Page 4

AUSTRALIANS AS FIGHTERS.

"HEROES EVERY ONE." TRIBUTE OF A COLONEL,

In a brief interview with a representative of the Melbourne Age, Colonel Bolton. who led the Bth battalion at the landing at Gallipoli, and who had command of the men who returned !ast week in the Ballarat, paid a high tribute to the qualities of the Australian soldiers. "They are heroes, every one." said Colonel Bolton. " and if Australia would confine her spending activities to ' the manufacture' of the essentials of war, such as rifles, artillery, and munitions, and trained her men to shoot accurately and her women to pray, there is no force in all Europe that could wrest Australia from the Australians." That, he said, was looking from a defensive standpoint. The offensive was a different matter, and ' the operations on the peninsula would prove to be a trial of strategy rather than of tactics. With the Turks so scientifically entrenched, and their positions so secretly guarded, it would be almost impossible to make rapid progress. The four hours' bombardment by the British navy prior to the landing of the attacking force at Gallipoli had very little effect 011 the entrenched Turks. The placid looking fields of the peninsula, the moment the landing force got ashore, were transformed into a hellish vortex. The heavy artillery churned up the ground our boys were covering to such an extent that it was impossible to see men a few yards ahead. The ririe and machine-gun fire was to be compared to so many hoses which sprayed our lines with lead. Words, said Colonel Bolton, could not describe the awfulness and horror of that landing, and the dry's that followed. No one knew adequately the suffering our men went through. Those who were not shot and remained in the trenches had to put up with great privations. From April 28 until May 18 not an officer, noncommissioned officer or man had anything but what ho stood up in. In that first charge over 50 per cent, of the men threw away their great coats, their i towels, and parts of their kits.