STORY OF OLD CAMPAIGNER

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1930, Page 9

STORY OF OLD CAMPAIGNER

X AT CRIMEA 75 YEARS AGO. SERGEANT-MAJOR BEZAR’S LIFE. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Nov. 12. To many who visited the Town Hall yesterday to attend the Armistice Day service the Great War seemed to be a long way back in one’s life. But it was a mere yesterday compared with the experience of. at least one of those who occupied a seat upon the platform. This was Sergeant-Major Bezar, o'f the 57th Regiment (the “Die Hards”), who stated yesterday that it was 75 years.to the day since he landed with a section of his regiment at Balaclava-to participate in the Crimean campaign. He would have been bn earlier from Malta, but owing to his youth he was detained for some time on the island until it became necessary to send forward urgently reinforcements to Crimea. It was November 11, 1555, that he stepped ashore at the little port of Balaclava, then the headquarters of the British forces in the campaign. This was the year succeeding the famous charge of the “Six Hundred.”