"EYE-WITNESS."

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2339, 22 December 1914, Page 3

"EYE-WITNESS."

WHO HE IS AND WHAT HE HAS DONE COLONEL E. D. SWINTQN. D.S.O. It is now an open secret that "EyeWitness," t] le pleasantly garrulous chronicler of military matters, who wanders from the "Nut" in warfare to the Canaries of "Jack Johnsons," is Colonel Ernest Dimlop Swinton, D.5.0., of the Royal Engineers. He is only just on the wrong side of forty, a man of s l )al '6 figure and with a full measure of t'he buoyancy of youth. He belongs to an essentially military family, for though his 'father -was an Indian Judge, he was at his post during the /1 Colonel Swinton's eldest brother fell ;n one of the many Indian frontier campaigns; the next brother is in tho Indian Medical Service, and nas spent enough years in that country to qualify for admission to the select body of confirmed Anglo-Indomani-acs who inhabit Ootacamund, while the youngest brother has served his country also in different climes. He himself is an old Public School boy, with a record of Rugby, Cheltenham, and Blackheath Proprietary School, the last-named an establishment now defunct, but once productive of a great school of "Rugger" footballers, amongst whom Colonel Swinton, despite hi? slight build, stood high. He 'had always a "taste for writing. He was the main contributor to the Blackheath School magazine, and he developed an easy penchant for conferring nicknames on all,his fellow boys, a faculty which makes one believe 'he has probably fathered some of - the appellations which nave been adopted by. the men whoso doings he describes. He had high honours at the "Shop" at Woolwich, and muc'h of his earlier, as well as some of his later, Army work was done at Chatham.

His great chance came in the South African War, and he took it. Belonging to the corps of "Bridgo Builders," otherwise the "Railway Pioneer Regiment," he found that the struggle provided him with unlimited scope, and if one wants to see what is apparently in parts almost an autobiographical note he should read "The Joint in the Harness," a remarkable little story, prophetic in its nature so far as the use of aeroplanes is concerned, which he published anonymously in lalier years in a volume to which from the first narrative, suggestive of Ladysmith, he gave the name of "The Green Curve.!' He finished his work on the Orange River and then pushed north, taking paxt in many an exciting little "seraph on the way to Johannesburg, and then at length on the Rand he became, at one time, chiefly responsible for the maintenance of order.

South Africa taught him war in.'its reality, and he was one of those who profited by if;s lessons, while he could m addition show how they were to be learned. No little book has demonstrated tbis more than "The Defence of Duffer's Drift," which, taking ns its_ hero a "nut" lieutenant, one Backsight Forethought, Esq., showed how such a position should not be defended and how it could be. Colonel Swinton. as usual writing anonymously, styled the little, brochure, "A Few Experiences in Field Defence for Detached Posts, which may prove useful in our next war," and, with a note of sardonic playfulness which is never absent from his work, he dedicated "this tale of a dream to the 'gilded popinjays' and 'hired assassins' of the British nation, especially those who are now knocking at the door—to wit, the very junior!" It was, in short, a- very serious little treatise, despite its light and airy garb, and it attracted rnucn' notice. Anyway,, one soon found the author lecturing in this countiy to army studfelits, and few professorial classes have been more popular. Time passed away —Colonel Swinton did not attend the Staff College, for the same reasons which have deterred many others—but his ability was never questioned, and his appointment as Assistant Secretary and Librarian of tho Imperial Committee of Defence was essentially good from the national standpoint. With the outbreak of the war he was soon in harness again. You can any day just about now see him moving along the British lines in a motor-car. Ho is enjoying himself, snd his letters show it.