KILLED BY TREACHERY

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16258, 8 July 1918, Page 5

KILLED BY TREACHERY

HOW MAJOR 0. SOMMJSJK.VU.LB DIED.

Details of the death, on active service in Palestino, of Major Charles Sommerville have been received by his brother, Major John SonmervUle, D.5.0., from the colonel and other officers of the Wellington Mounted Rifles. All the writers express, tfunr sense of the loss the mounted brigade has suffered by the death of tho deceased officer. Major Sommerville's last service was with the column which crossed the Jordan on £aster Monday, to make a raid on the Hedjaz railway, beyond the mountains of Moab. After- three days of severe fighting, the column was retiring to Jericho with the Wellington Moufeteds as rearguard; Major Sommerville and the second squadron acting, as the last detachment of the rearguard. The column had to paw through a village, the inhabitants of which pretended to be friendly, a-nd .were treated as friends, having beer, given a guard to protect them from.the Arabs, who asked leave of General 'Chaytor to removo them, as .they were no good. Just beyond the village was a steep defile about three miles long. The column had passed through the village into the defile, and' Major Sommerville, fith his squadron,, had'' just entered t«e defile wnen, * froin benind every boulder and' rock • above, below, and behind them, a rifle cracked. They were • ambushed by their pretended friends. Three officers and eight men were killed, and eight were wounded before the treacherous enemy were driven off .with a loss of over.-80 tilled and many wounded. Major Sommerville was desperately wounded, and died next day in a hospital in Jericho. He lies in a little cemetery, a mile from Jericho, just at the > foot of _ the hills, where the road begins -to rise in >£he, ascent from Jericho to Jerusalem. Major Sommerville was a son late Colonel J. R. Sommerville, of nganui, and of - Mrs Sommerville, v■ of Rhyll, Stanley Bay, Auckland. He served with distinction' in South Africa, being twice 1 mentioned in despatches. He left "Wellington for Egypt in July, 1916, with the Fifteenth Reinforcements, and was engaged in the battles of Magdaba (December, 1916), Rafa, (January, 1917), Khan Tunas (February, 1917), and in the first baitls r of Gaza, in March, where he was woundr ed. ' He . returned to duty in July, 1917, with a brevet majority. He was appointed to the substantive rank of major in August, and was with /the Mounted Rifles in the flank on Beersheba, in November, and the subsequent advance on Jerusalem and Jericho. ''