REGIMENTAL TIES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18760, 17 July 1935, Page 4

REGIMENTAL TIES

GUARDSMEN VETERANS CAMPAIGNS RECALLED GOVERNOR AND COMRADE Old comrades who. though separated in army life by the wide gulf which stands between the commissioned and non-commissioned ranks in the Household Cavalry Brigade, found many memories in common in a discussion of their regimental associations, met yesterday in Gisborne when His Excellency the Governor-General gave a private interview to Mr. Samuel Charles Wells, a resident of Poverty Bay for the past seven years, and formerly a member of His Majesty's Life Guards. It was with that regiment that Lord Galway had been identified since 1904, and in which he rose to command, while Mr. Wells, in .the ranks, also served in the regiment until the post-war demobilisation of long service men. Yesterday's interview made the occasion a red-letter one for Mr. Wells, -who is sub-station supervisor at Patutahi for the Public Works Department, with which ho has been since 1523. He came to New Zealand in 1921, and among his early experiences in the Dominion he counts several incidents in the hydroelectric construction camps, which were in full swing when he firs* secured employment with the department. He was naturally averse to revealing the subject matter of his interview with the Gov-ernor-General, but not to the discussion o? thfc Imperial Army service through "hich he, is linked with His Excellency. DIFFICULT APPRENTICESHIP This link is of particular interest, since it was in the same month, November. 1904, that Lord Galway and Mr. Wells joined the Life Guards. Lord Galway was then Lieut, the Hon. OJfci r . A Monckton-Arundel, and he had pad some prior service with, a yeomafiry regiment, but he had a difficult apprenticeship to serve among the commissioned officers of the Household Cavalry, just as Mr. Wells, us a private and a "rooky" had a hard row to hoe before h<> fell into the way of the Guards. From his place in the ranks, Mr. Wells noted the rapid growth of popularity in the regiment of the young subaltern, to whom every detail of soldierly duty and. obligation was invested with- the keenest interest! A young man of perception and great ability, he carried out his duties with vigor and dispatch, and gave to those in the lower levels of military life an example of wonderful value. By the men in the ranks he came to be regarded with that peculiar devotion which the averago British soldier maintains for the best type of officer, and his talents as a horseman and as a sportsman in general became the boa,st of the regiment.

As a rider in point-to-point steeplehascs, at polo, and to hounds, Lord Galway in his younger days exemplified a fearlessness and judgment to which the majority of his contemporaries could only aspire. In his work as a regimental officer he • demanded a high standard of discipline and performance, but himself set that standard and maintained it.

COMMANDED TWO RrDGIMENTS At the outbreak of the War he was adjutant of the Ist Life -Guards, and was posted to the headquarters staff, on which he served throughout the period of hostilities; After the declaration of peace, the Ist and 2nd Life Guards regiments were amalgamated, and Lord Galway, as Major the Hou. G. V. A. Monckton-Arundel, took command of the amalgamated units. This command was almost unique, and to the former members of the first regiment in particular, was a souice of great pride.

Of Mr. Wells' own connection with the Household Cavalry, he spoke with some reluctance though with a considerable degree of pride in the achievements represented by the battle honors on the regimental colors. Owing to the close association with tho Royal Household enjoyed by tho Life Guards, there has been an impression that the Guards are not fighting regiments, this impression being embodied in a recent musical composition which gained wide popularity. Mr. Wells has had occasion in the past to defend emphatically the fighting reputation of the Guards, and in his conversation with a pressman he again emphasised the fact that "tho King's horse and the King's men" do much more, than "march down the street and march back again." THE RETREAT FROM MONS During his own war service with his regiment, for instance, Mr Wells took part in tho retreat from Mons, and in the fighting on the Marno which turned the scale of victory in the early days of the war. His recollections of the terrible fatigue of the retreat, when men dropped asleep on tho march, and day after day was a nightmare of uncertainty, are among those which he prefers not to discuss.

Like many others, of the "Old Contemptibles," he feels that to the civilian, or even to the man of average war service, the extraordinary character of tho retreat from Mons cannot be conveyed in words. Compared with those first few weeks of fighting rearguard actions, the later experiences of tho Life Guards were mild, though they went through the most serious and critical phases of the British Expeditionary Forces' fighting in France. Mr Wells continued with his regiment all through the period of hostilities, with tho usual brief leaves to

"Blighty," and as a dismounted cavalryman, fought in the battles of the .Marno' and the Aisne, at the first and second battles of Ypres, at the first battle on the Somme, and again later iu the defence of Amiens, when his regiment lost 60 per cent, of its strength in casualties. That was in March, 1918, when tho fate of the Allies' cause was m a desperate plight, and General Sir Douglas Haig, later Earl Haig, issued his famous "backs to tho wall" order tn the troops. ONLY ONE MINOR WOUND

Throughout all this service Mr. Wells, who had gained non-commissioned rank, was fortunate enough to come without a serious wound. He did suffer one wound, but this was a minor injury to a ringer, which did not long keep him from his normal duties. His first serious mishap in the war zone occurred in September, 1918, when, while acting as a dispatch carrier, he was thrown from a motor-cycle. Tho number of times on which he escaped injury by narrow margins on earlier occasions was innumerable, as in the case of most men who served for lengthy periods in tho battle areas, but one incident of his career in France was of especial interest. On this occasion he was at Etaples, a base camp near Boulogne, awaiting shipment to England on leave. Enemy bombing planes came over the base at night, and did extensive damage, spreading a great deal of concern among the. war-weary troops encamped on the margin of the English Channel. Mr. Wells and a party of men for whom he was responsible took their own course out of the danger zone Jjy boarding a small boat and allowing it to drift out on the tide. In the early dawn, though without oars, they succeeded in reaching land again, and the- incident passed without notice. CONTACTS WITH ROYALTY Of tho obligations of service in the Guards Regiment during peace time, Mr. Wells retains lively recollections, some of them illustrating the rigors cf household duties iu the palaces of Royalty. On two occasions he was selected for a particular post of honor on the staircase of Buckingham Palace, when State balls unci levees wero being held there. According to the tradition of the regiment the men on these posts were required to maintain a motionless pose at attention, holding before them the cavalry sword, for periods of four and a half hours. It. was a supreme test of endurance, and men had been known to collapse before the expiry of the routine duty period. While' ongaged in this onerous duty, in his pre war service with the Life Guards, Mr. Wells became acquainted with the appearance of many of the Royalties of Europe, including those of the Czar of Russia and the Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm 11.

Not alone in tho Royal palaces, but elsewhere in the pursuit of his duties as a Guardsman, Mr. Wells was brought into close touch with European rulers. The closest contact he ever had with a reigning monarch, however, was at Olympia, where in one of the pre-war years the Kaiser Wilhclm attended the Royal Naval and Military Tournament, one of the great social occasions of the London season. In alighting from his carriage the Kaiser stepped forcefully upon the foot of Mr. Wells, who was at the right of the lino of the guard of honor. The contact with Royalty left a lasting impression upon tho mind of the Guardsman, though the impression upon his foot was short-lived, and to the Kaiser tho incident was negligible.