INDIAN HEROES AT YPRES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2542, 17 August 1915, Page 5

INDIAN HEROES AT YPRES

AN OFFICER'S PRAISE GALLANTRY UNDER FIRE By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright London, August 15. An officer with Indian headquarters, tlesoribing tho Lahore Division's operations round Ypres on April 26, says:— t The 40th Pathans had their first experience of shell fire whilst marching around a moat south of Ypres. The firing was particularly heavy. Many of the shells fell into the water or hit the ■walls without doing damage. The men cheered each successive miss. Suddenly . a shell dropped in the middle of Yusufzai: Company; which was about the centre or the column, and there were twenty-three casualties. The regiment moved on unperturbed, and with scarcely a pause. ■ ' . Asphyxiating Shells. The Julhmdur Brigade had th'reo sheila dropped into its midst containing asphyxiating gas.'' 'At fifty yards it so affected their eyes-as,to incapacitate' them from using the rifle.. Some time during the advance Colonel Rcndick, of tho 40th, was mortally wounded.' An adjutant dragged him-to n ditch,' where he lay till dusk. His last thoughts , were with his regiment. •"When:placed on a stretcher lie said:— • "Send two of iny Patliaris with me. If ■ 'I die on the.wayito hospital I should like theni to be with me." A majority of the 40th's maohine-gnn Idetaehment were hit and the guns held up. A Sepoy named Muhkhtiara, who was- sheltering in a small ditch in advance) volunteered to go back and bring up a gun. He had to -twice cross a spaco of 250 yards, which was being swept by enfilade maohine-gun and rifle ' fire, but succeeded, and returned 'nnder ■ a hail'of bullets, carrying the gam. i Sepoys' Heroism. . 'A Sepoy named Najikhan, of the 129 th Baluchis, volunteered to. oarrv a messago under tho : heaviest shell, and rifle . fire, "but had fcarcely gone a quarter of ; ■ the distance when he was hit bj;' a bit ■ of shell and badly, wounded, being almost knocked out. He managed, however, to crawl on and deliver bis mes- ; Bago. Fifty of the Connaughts and sixty of the Manchester, ..with small parties of the 40th Pathans, the 47th Sikhs, ■ ond'the 129 th Baluchis, advanced nearly a mile over open ground. Greatly reduced in numbers they got to within a ■ few yards of the German line, when they v.-ere niet by poisonous gas and half suffocated; vet they. held, tlaeir_ ground for a. terrible twelve hours till reinforcements relieved them. . The gallantry of the stretcher-bearers .in every; action cannot be too highly praised. Even the Sepoys- and the tumbler Kahar have never, been known , .to shirk danger. '