A YOUTHFUL VETERAN.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14156, 19 April 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

A YOUTHFUL VETERAN.

LETTER PROM SERGEANT

BENNETT

APPRECIATION OF GIFTS

(From "The Colonist," March 32.)

I Sergeant Phil. Bennett, son of Mr. I and Mrs. John Bennett, of Murchison, who was probably the youngest man in the New Zealand Main Body, being only 16 years of age when he enlisted, went right through the Gallipoli campaign without a day's sickness. Writing from Ismailia to a friend in Nelson be says:—"By the time you receive this the full news of the evacuation will be 'in New Zealand. It 'must have come as a pretty big surprise to everybody. I kfloW for Us on the peninsula it came as a great shock, and it was not until about three days before the actual evacuation commenced that we knew definitely we were leaving." Continuing, Sergeant Bennett mentions that the Seventh Reinforcements had arrived, and wore engaged guarding Turkish prisoners at Maddi. Referring to the advance in August, he say 9 it. was terrible, and "I simply don't .know how any of us came out of it alive." "By Jove," ho writes, "Nelson people have been absolutely great in the amount of Christmas gifts and cakes, etc., they have sent. I think the Nelson boys have received more stuff this New Year than any other New Zealand crowd. Of course, a bit of stuff naturally goes astray, but we have all done marvellously welj."