WOUNDED FROM GALLIPOLI.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13825, 21 July 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

WOUNDED FROM GALLIPOLI.

CHEERFUL CONVALESCENTS, '

(From otm own , Correspondent.)

Wellington, J\Uy 15. It is too much to hope that all the hospital ships winch come- back with wounded soldiers will, prasent the cheerful appearance of the Willoohra, which, berthed here to-day. To the peoplo who stay at homo, war seems mostly a vague romantic thing. None of the horrible realities of it got near enough to us for a realisation of -tlie truth.

The 'first batch of our gallant wounded have had two months' nursing and a long sea trip sine©-they-left the steep shores of Gallipoli. Much of the outward sign of'suffering .has-had time to disappear. There axe, singularly few crutches to b© seen, and tho bandages on heads or arms on the boat could easily bo counted. NO USE FOR FIRE BARS. "You would not know them for the sickly, miserable tired lot who came aboard at Port Said," remarked one of the military medical officers to'your correspondent.*. "Now they are as jolly as can be, and most of their troubles are over. While we were at Port Said some fiie bur* were being put overboard, ami somebody ordered that they should bo kept for use on the voyage. You know what they use fire bars for at sea, 1 suppose? Well, we know that use of fire bars, but I am thankful to say that instead of losing any of our men, we haven't lost one, nor have we looked like losing one.'' As for the wounded, the same surgeon said ho had not come across a case of tetanus. The s>oil of South Gallipoli is culrirated,, but apparently not so loaded with manure as tlie soil of Flanders, which has given so much trouble when it gets into wounds. The officer mentioned that mar.y of the Willochra injured wer© liit by indirect shots. Defected bullets behaved :-ri singular fashion. They hit a rib or the skull and spun around without going through a vital spot, while in other cases when they'struck a-bone they shattered it.

Messages from the Dardanelles have mentioned a scarcity of stretcherbearers. "That is quite right," said tihe doctor; "becar.se tlio Turks shot them.

This point was promptly corroborated by Lieutenant Weir, a Canterbury man who is iti the Auckland Infantry Regiment. "One of ttbe stretch er-fbear-ers who carried me out of tho way had his head blown off," said the lieutenant, who added that he was advancing in th<? open preparatory to a charge when he was shot through the legs.