FOREST RANGERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 16

FOREST RANGERS

VON TEMPSKY’S FORCE PARTICIPATION IN MAORI WARS. The death in the Hutt Valley last week of a veteran of Von Tempsky’s Forest Rangers in the Maori Wars brings to mind (states the Evening Post) the exploits of the famous force as related in “The New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period,” by James Cowan. In the first week of August, 1863, the following attractive invitation to arms appeared in the Southern Cross newspaper, Auckland: “Active young men having some experience of New Zealand forests may now confer a benefit upon the colony and also ensure a comparatively free and exciting life for themselves by joining a corps of forest volunteers now being enrolled in this province to act as the Taranaki Volunteers have acted in striking terror into the marauding Natives by operations not in the power of ordinary troops. By joining the corps the routine of militia life may be got rid of. and a body of active and pleasant comrades ensured. Only men of good character wanted.”

The first corps of Forest Rangers to take the field in Nbav Zealand Avas the No. 2 Company, Taranaki Rifles, formed in June, 18(13. The force, as the war went on, Avas increased to tAvo companies, and was styled’ the Taranaki Bush Rangers. The appeal in the Southern Cross soon filled the ranks of a company of Forest Rangers, 60 strong, under the command of Lieutenant William Jackson. ToAvards/ the end of the year a second company Avas formed under the command of Captain Von Tempsky. The pay at first Avas 10s a day, but it Avas later reduced to 4s Cd a day and rations, and a double ration of rum, on account of the rough character of the Avork. The Rangers’ arms Avere a breechloading Calisher and Terry Carbine, a five-shot revolver, and, in -Von Tempsky’s company, a bowie knife with a blade 10 inches or 12 inches long. A POLISH ARISTOCRAT.

Of tire Rangers’ two commanders, Gustavus Von Tempsky, captain of No. 2 Company, was by far the more experienced bush fighter. Of aristocratic Polish blood, he began his military life in the Prussian army in the early forties, but quickly sought a career more to his taste. In Central America he commanded at one time an irregular force of Mosquito Coast Indiana against the Spanish, and he guided British naval parties against Spanish stockades in one of the little Avars in those parts. He tried his fortune in California in the “ days of forty-nine,” and travelled adventurously through Mexico. The neAvs of the gold find at Coromandel brought him to Ncav Zealand from Australia. The first shots of the Waikato War excited the old war-fever, and after trying unsuccessfully to form a diggers’ corps at Coromandel captained by himself—there aa'us some prejudice against him on account of his nationality—he joined the Southern Cross neAvspaper at Auckland as a temporary Avar correspondent. He accompanied Jackson as correspondent on one of the early expeditions into the Wairoa Ranges. Von Tempsky Avas invited to join the Rangers as a subaltern and military adviser, and the Government gave him a commission as ensign. When he was commissioned to enlkst a company of his oavu he Avas able to pick a little body ot first-class men from the many recruits offering. The first body of Rangers Avas disbanded after three months’ service, and toAvards the end of the year 1863, tAvo companies Avere formed, each of 50 men. A HARD LIFE.

The men in the Forest Rangers Avere a varied set of adventurers. The bushtrained settlers of Papnkura, Hunua. and the Wairoa Avere the dependable nucleus of the corps, and to their ranks Avere added sailors, gold diggers, and others AA’ho had seen much of the rough end of life. Von Tempsky, describing his company of 50 men at the end of 1863, Avrote: “Like Jackson, I had tAvo black men, former men-o’-Avar’smen; one had been a prize-fighter, I had men of splendid education, and men as ignorant as the soil on which they stood.” All nationalities Avere in the ranks —English, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Germans, and Italians. Some of Von Tempsky’s best volunteers had been members of the Ist Waikato Regiment of Militia. Tiie Rangers’ field equipment Avas simple. On the Avarpath in the Wairoa and Hunua hush their bed was a bundle of fern, and the forest Avas their tent. In the campaigning in the Waikato blueblanket tents were used. There Avere army blankets, Avith fastenings for use as bivouac shelters. In fording rivers, those Avho could not sAvim had large bundles of dry fern cut and placed under their chin and breast as they took the Avater, and they Avere hauled across with hastily-made flax ropes. Ahvays in crossing a river in the enemy country the best sAvimniers Avent over first—holding their carbines over their heads. Von Tempsky, promoted to major, Avas killed at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, in the Taranaki district, on September 7, 1868. It Avas in this fight that Mr David Taylor, the Hutt Valley veteran, Avhose death occurred last week, was Avouuded.