Wanganui.

New Zealand Tablet, 18 May 1916, Page 25

Wanganui.

May 12.

The" Opera House was crowded last night when Captain-Chaplain Segrief, who was Catholic chaplain with the Advance Guard of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Samoa and later on the hospital ship Maheno during her first commission at Gallipoli, gave a very interesting lecture on his experiences (says the Wanganui Herald of May 12). The Mayor (Mr. Mackay), who presided, briefly introduced the rev. lecturer. Rev. Father Segrief set out by explaining that he was there to speak out of a debt of gratitude to the Wanganui Patriotic Committee, as that body had made a grant to assist in the erection of the Catholic institute (an institution open to all who cared to use it) at the Featherston Camp.. In the , first place he dealt with the equipment and sending off of the first Expeditionary Force, which had Samoa for. its objective. The men of that force were somewhat disappointed that there was no opposition to their landing. For months those soldier lads, drawn from every class and calling, endured the heat and pests of a tropical climate : and though they knew they had done the work assigned to them, they were anxious to get away to scenes of more stirring activity. But time passed on and all returned and eagerly joined the ranks again, and to-day hundreds of those splendid fellows sleep the long sleep on the slopes of Gallipoli. He had the good fortune to be with those men in the Islands, and it was a duty as well as a pleasure to say that their conduct and bearing were all that their folk in New Zealand could have wished of them. A time came also when his own wish" was granted, and he was sent off in the first hospital ship, the Maheno, which reached the beach at Anzac towards the end of the fierce fighting of August. His first experiences under fire were then related by the rev. lecturer, who. said the Maheno pulled up within half a mile of the shore, and shells were dropping around the ship.- They saw then the extraordinary work done by those who had participated in the landing and the subsequent fighting. Those men had carried their lives in their hands every day, but nothing could daunt them, nothing could stop them. What would have taken generations to achieve under ordinary conditions our men had at Anzac achieved in those terrible days—fame, honor, manly independence.

Captain Segrief said that from their position within half a mile of the trendies, they could see plainly the nature and character of the country where our lads 1 had landed, and which they stormed with truly irresistible dash and bravery. There were the beaches -and trenches from which they ousted the Turks, the steep, and weather-riven cliffs up which they climbed —the long spurs and ridges they had fought over for close on five miles of the six miles width of the peninsula at Anzac—the endless lines of trenches and saps

thev had dug at nights after weary days of desperate fighting. In all the gullies and beneath each bluff were the wretched dug-outs, where they slept and

sought . shelter from the incessant spray of shrapnel that decimated them day and night. There on the shore were huge quantities of stores, and the remains of numerous boats and lighters smashed and ruined at the landing and later." To the south a few miles was the steep bluff promontory of Gaba Tepe, on which lay that terror of our boys, the murderous gun, 'Beachy Bill.' So ably concealed was this gun that our men were never able to hit it. Two monitors were brought up with the object of destroying this gun, and started firing with 13.5 guns, which caused tremendous concussions, and blasted the whole of the hill on which ' Beachy Bill ' was situated away, but ' Bill' spoke as usual that night as if nothing had happened. Father Segrief went on to speak of the work the warships were doing daily about Anzac, and of the reciprocal admiration of the Navy men and our lads ashore. The monitors, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and ' faked ' Dreadnoughts were mentioned, as well as the mass of warships and transports in Mudros Bay. An account was given of the shipping of the wounded from the beach — treatment on board the Maheno, and their removal at bases, such as Alexandria and Malta, to the numerous hospitals ashore. ..The efficiency of the ship, the skill and devotion of the staff of doctors and nurses, were' reviewed, and the speaker concluded by a eulogy of the newly-developed spirit of bravery, dash, self-sacrifice, and resourcefulness which contributed to putting the Australasians on the high pedestal now universally assigned to them, and which their past experience in Gallipoli will enable them to maintain in their new field of action.

The lecture was listened to throughout with rapt attention, and.on resuming his seat the Rev. Father was loudly applauded. On the motion of Mr. T. B. Williams, seconded by Mr. G. Spriggens, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded Captain-Chaplain Segrief for his most interesting address.