CAPTAIN WALLINGFORD

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2610, 4 November 1915, Page 4

CAPTAIN WALLINGFORD

•"HUMAN MACHINE-GUN." 'A 1 writer in the "Weekly Despatch," in describing tho exploits of the Now Zealand and Australian troops in Gallipoli, says;—" Sir-lan Hamilton has paid the Australasians a fine compliment on their skill in making their way by night through rough, bad counwhich was unfamiliar to them. Their night march in the early hours of August 6 was a wonderful one, but it could never have been made, as they all agree, but for the remarkable genius of one man. "That man is Captain Wallingford, D.5.0., or, as they prefer to call him the 'Human Machine-gun.' ' Sanders Pasha has done him the honour of placing a price upon his head, ■ but the Australasians aro confident that the Turk who oan earn it has not yet been born. He has impressed tho fine shots of the Australian contingent with his remarkable skill and quickness with tho magazine rifle. 'He can fire thirty shots in a minute with an ordinary service weapon and score a 'bull' every time,' said, one Australian. This sounds uncanny, .but so.are the,other achievements with which he is credited. "Captain Wallingford's prescience in the placing of machine-guns is so remarkable that the mon have only to see an emplacement being made to knowthat the position so enforced is a safe one, _ where heavy fighting will surely end in an advantage to themselves. His übiquity is a standing source of astonishment to tbeso men, who are not easily amazed. ■ '"I think there must be two of him,' said one Australian in describing Captain _ Wallingford's activities. 'One morning I saw him on Walker's Ridge with his pack and glasses and a slung riflo, and that stick with a seat on it whioh he always carries. Soon after I was sent to Quinn's Post and I went by the nearest way. : 'How long lias Wallingford been hero?' I asked tho fellows whon I saw him out on the ridge. 'Oh, about twenty minutes!' they said. How he got there I don't know." "Tho Australasians owe a great deal of their knowledge of the broken country through which they marched on the early morning of August 5 to the unremitting intelligence work don® by Captain Wallingford, D.5.0."