TRAVIS, KING OF NO MAN'S LAND.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 11, 8 October 1918, Page 8

TRAVIS, KING OF NO MAN'S LAND.

DARING NEW ZEALAND TRENCH RAID

HIS LIFE AND DEATH ATTHE

FRONT

(From Captain Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent, with tho New Zealand Forces in the Field.)

Headquarters, July 26, 1918. "Any time the General wants a couple of Huns he can have them." Tile words were spoken neither in boast nor in jest; 'for what the man said ho could and did do, not once, but many times. It was worth noting, too, that the words came from the firm mouth of a lean, hard-bitten face, yet with certain lines on it that indicated a kindly but shrewd humour. The man was Richard Charles Travis, and he had won the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Medal, and had been awarded tho Belgian Croix do G-uerrc. All these, and more, ho had well earned. His great gallantry was matched only by his innate modesty. Among his own comrades he was affectionately known as "Dick, the Rough-house Merchant," from the fact that many a German shell-hole, sap, and dug-out had immediately been turned into "a rough house" upon the occasions of his frequent but uncertain visits. Undoubtedly he was the King of the New Zealand Raiders. "No Man's Land" was his Jiome. He lived in it night and day. Ho knew every s<ip and shell-hole, every tree and turn in and about it. He knew it better than he knew his own trenches. And, in addition, he knew the methods and habits of the German soldier as few wa knew them. . •

Ho was so kindly a man that he would not hurt a fly, but. he would kill Huns by tho hundred. Away back in the stirring times of Attila thero must have been some ancestor of his in tho armies that tried to stem the tide of advancing Huns—someone who had been witness of their methods, and, with a growing spirit of revenge, had watched'the lighting of their sacrificial pyres. How otherwise could Richard Travis have patiently and- successfully planned the destruction of so many modern examples of the Attilan hordes? Richard Travis was what, in tho vernacular of tho modern soldier, > one would' call "a hard doer" I believe that ho came to New Zealand from Arizona, that home of tho adventurous, where one might well imagine his days spent in taming the spirit of some wild Bronco, and his nights devoted to social intercourse, with a "gun". always haiidy in his hip pocket, ready for any "rough-house" incident that might suddenly 1-lazo up in front of counter or saloon bar. In either case one might be sure that he would more thairhold his own, aiid that his might would be oil the side of right.

"What favourincr breeze blew him to distant New Zealand I do not know, but once there, hn to have found congenial occupation'in horse-breaking, at which he was a past master. "When \rar was declared lie enlisted in the Neff Zealand Mounted Rifles, and he went hot-foot after them when they 'sailed from Egypt as infantry to toko their share in the stirring work that, under our nresent General, fell to their lot on Gallipoii. It was out on the left towards Suvla that he first began to show his preference for No-Man's Land. At Annentieres he did splendid work, and in, 1916.'after we tad trekked to the So'mme, we began to hear nf him again, this time as n killer of Germans. In those days, unless he wanted a man to dig a, hole for him, or to do some stretcher-bearing ho seldom took a prisoner. Once, eriminor upon a pnrty of Germans who showed fight, ho kent a fmv of them-for stretclipr work, and lx> himself mnrclied with them for several trins until thev dropped from sheer fatigue.; Sometimes, too, he f.ived a few prisoners to sample the German rations and the German beer and wine to make sure that it was not poisoned.. "He could never quite trust the Germans. Hn was to the fore again m l'loegsteert. .

War Honours. On October 22, 1916, he won his D.0.M., and early in 1918 he was awarded the Belgian Crois do Guerre. On May 14, 1918, he won the Military Medal.' This was during operations east- of Hobuterne, during which ho displayed conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He went out with a party of four men in broad daylight and captured an enemy machine-gun post. Although his own unit was m the support lines he volunteered to go out and obtain an enemy identification that wasairgently required. He left our'front line at 7.15 p.m., and by taking advantage of the lie of the ; ground-- he. crept up to tho . Germans unobserved, .'-and surprised seven.of them I .' The officer, of tho post showed fight, and had to be shot. Thereupon tho other Germans gave tho alarm to a neighbouring post, the members of which rushed down a sap to the aid of their comrades, firing, as they came, at tlie small New Zealand party. In tho melee two of the German prisoners .who wore being taken through No Man's Land were shot by their would-be rescuers. ' The withdrawal , with the others was very cleverly. covered by Travis, who. stood his ground until he liad emptied his revolver at the other Germans. He and his comrades, during the withdrawal, were subjected to heavy machine-gun fire, and wero sniped at from the German positions, yet they relurned unhit with their prisoners, tho whole adventure being conducted with the utmost audacity and coolness.

In the subsequent fighting at Oceanvillers, early in April, Travis was wounded in' the jaw, and had several teeth'knocked out. He was sent.back to a field ambulance, thence, to the dental hospital, for a new lot of teeth. Hut dressing stations and dental hospitals had no charms for his restless spirit, and he chafed at tho delay. He persuaded doctors and dentists to treat him out of his turn no that he might get back to the.firing-line at the earliest possible moment.

Daring Exploits. Recently, when, a'ftor a few weeks' spell behind the lines, his regiment returned to tho front in a new sector, he at onco proceeded to make No Man's Land his home again. It was a ne'.v No Man's.Land, but he lost no time in making himself familiar with it. Day and night he patrolled and investigated. For the attacks that wero pending lie located every enemy post and every bit of wire that would be likely to hold i\p tlie attack.. The remarkable acenracv with which ho did this was proved when tho Otapo men went through Eossignol Wood and afterwards gained the high ground beyond. During the attack the other day he and his little band killed the crews of two machineguns and captured the guns, and when he saw tho enemy massing for an attack lie boldly advanced and chased them away. In the attack that •,«- cured the high ground in front of the wood he went up to enemy wire one minuto heforo tho bombardment was duo to come down, and, with hiuvl grenades, in broad daylight, he blow the wire nway! This was to make sure that it would be cut and would not hold up our infantry when they came along, for it was not quite that the trench inortnrs would cut it, seeing that they had not been able to register for fear o-f giving away their position and the impending attack. This daring bit of work' successfully accomph'shofl, he dashed back just in time before , tho barrage came down. But oven

when his work was finished he refused Itc etny back. "No, sir," ho slid to his commanding officer, "I must go back to iny men at the front, for some of them sire now hands, find I. must, give them all tho help I can." From tho last fight he came back with a leather satchel filled with German maps and taken from an officer -whom he had killed. In the "bivvy" of his battalion commander this afternoon I saw the satchel. "I said I would keep the case for him, and this is the case," said the major, "who was in temporary command. I was shown also Travis'3 last report. It was written in rather a scrawly hand, and was somewhat illiterate, but I could see that the major handled it thoughtfully, even affectionately. A man of strong and determination, ho was impatient of orders. He was on terms of intimacy, even of friendship, with the officers of his regiment. For his little band of daring adventurers he was allowed to pick and choose his own men, and certainly he made a wonderful selection of scouts. Like their chief, they armed themselves mostly -with German automatic pistols and bombs. They took with them also their gas masks. Rifles and bayonet they invariably left behind, and they scorned to wear tho steel helmet. In this respect they were a law unto themselvos. Instead they wore worsted balaclava caps. Officers and men used to watch the band climbing over the parapet on their No Man's Land errands wearing this strange head gear made more fantastic still by the green twigs with which it was decorated. It was a camouflage that presaged death or captivity for i»any an unwary Hun. In such guise they' certainly looked a ruffianly band, and woe betide the occupants of tho post or trench they were out to capture,, though, in ordinary life each of them may have been as mild a man as ever slit a weasand'. Baxter,- one of the band, was killed at Passchendaelo. Another, who got a D.C.M. in the fighting near Hebuterne, was so I'badly wounded that he is returning to New Zealand. , These were two ; of Travis's best men. Their work was splendid. But modern war alters quickly the composition of any 'unit, and a few weeks have brought changes in this little hand.

In the fighting in front of Rossignol Wood, Travis was in his element, and in high spirits. One of his exploits was to bomb'down a trench, and send such of the eneiv.y as were were not killed or wounded flying for their lives. When he came back he gleefully told the j.C. that if he hadn t run out -if bombs he would have been . marching on Berlin I ■ At one stage of the fighting lie had captured throe Germans, whom, for greater safety, he took into one of their own dug-outs. The Germa'ns, being thiee to one, turned on him, and a burly Prussian knifed him in the leg, -whereupon he promptly pulled out his automatic revolver and killed all three.

During his various enterprises, Travis made wonderful collections . o'f battle souvenirs. Sometimes he enmo back from a raid with things hung all about him, looking more like a-travel-ling pedlar than a soldier. Binoculars by goertz and Carl Zeiss, costly stereoscopic periscopes, automatic revolvers, and many other trophies fell to his lot; hut he was generous in spirit, and invariably he gave them' away to friends and acquaintances.

He was killed instantaneously by a stray shell while sitting in a dug-out. It was perhaps hard luck, after all his stirring adventures at tho front, that Richard Travis should have been killed bv a chance shell. . But it was, after all, the death he might have wished for. At any rate, no German got him in a hand-to-hand encounter, and his ifame will go clown in history as the invincible King of the New Zealand Raiders.

Hisown comrades insisted on carrying his body out from the front line. This they did reverently, because they had a great affection rfor him. Tn the evening his .jfuneral passed from thn farm across a shallow valley, and through a sleepy village to the soldiers' graveyard on thrt vidge beyond, the baud otf the battaifion playing the Dead March , from "Saul," and many of his comrades marching in the procession.