GALLIPOLI RELIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22461, 3 July 1936, Page 12

GALLIPOLI RELIC

STUMP OF RHODODENDRON

USED BY MACHINE-GUNNERS

I)ug up with a meat saw on the morning of the last day of the evacuation of Gallipoli, the stump of a rhododendron bush that once sheltered a New Zealand machine-gun section has been presented to the Auckland War Memorial Museum by Mr. T. Maxwell, of Pukekohe. The stuinp bears the number of Mr. Maxwell, cut after he had taken it as a souvenir, and the initials and marks of other soldiers, who carved them when the tree was growing on the enemy side of the trench.

The bush grew at the top of Rhododendron Ridge, made famous by the feats of the Australians and New Zealaiiders in the attack on Gallipoli. The rhododendron was taken as a machinegun position first by some Australian soldiers and laterally New Zealanders. But, as Mr. Maxwell explains in a covering letter, Turkish fire eventually reduced the bush to a stump that was useless for anything but a handhold for those going out to a night listening post.

In his letter Mr. Maxwell say's the last day of the evacuation vas very foggy and most of the men went out into No Man's Land under cover of the fog to collect souvenirs. He himself was using the stump to climb from the trench when he realised its importance, so lie got a meat saw from the cookhouse and dug it out.