LETTER FROM THE FRONT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1445, 11 September 1915, Page 3

LETTER FROM THE FRONT.

Mr C. J. Kent-Johnston, who heard yesterday trom his son, Sapper W. F. Kent-Johnston, received a couple of copies of the Peninsula Press, which is the official organ on the Peninsula at Gallipoli. Though only foolscap in size it is very neatly printed and forms a nice little souvenir. Writing under date of the loth and 15th July, inter alia Sapper KentJohnston states: “That yarn about the Turks poisoning wells is untrue, so far as our part of the Peninsula is concerned. The Turks have played the game very well indeed and have done nothing worse than our own men have done. Considering our position we have a very fair supply of water ample for drinking and cooking, but I haven’t had a fresh water wash for several weeks. Its 90 in the shade every f hv and a fair corker. The 'J h authorities are most horrible liars as witness the article in the Peninsula Press. In that action they got an awful slathering up, we, or rather the force at the Cape took a 1000 yards of trenches fairly easily and repulsed all counter attacks with terrible slaughter. (The Turkish version was that the Allies lost over 15,000). The noise of the heavy bombardment w r as heard here for three days ; we could see hundreds of shells bursting on the ridges eight or ten miles down. The only N.Z. troops in Egypt now are a sprinkling of mounteds with their horses, detachments of Army Service and Medical, and the wounded and convalescent. Just a note of warning. Apparently every scratch treated by medical officers is reported to New Zealand as a casualty, there have been men in our own company with very slight wounds with photos in five newspapeis ana already they are back at work none the worse for it. Not one man a day now gets hit from a rifle bullet which will show you what a fire command we have established, but fighting in a circumscribed ares such as we are doing, it’s th. easiest thing in th 1 world to sto;: I asi apnel pellet, yet reported as wounded eujoy a little holiday and scare fits out of vour people at home. Its too much to expect to 1 come through without a scratch sometime or other, but it need cause you not the slightest anxiety j unless labelled “dangerously.” Al'eady many hundreds 01 i wounded are back in the firing I line. Talk about the luck of a ! Chinaman. About dusk, the safest time, a party of us went down last evening for a swim, and for the first time in the 70 odd swims I’ve had, I went in off a different group of barges. We’d been in five minutes when a shell landed in the barge I always till then undressed in, and it got four. I reckon that’s more than mere chance. When the censorship is removed and I can write freely you will see that right from the jump I’ve teen in the hottest section of the line. That is admitted by all. Of course, I’ve done nothing heroic. Bayonet charges or trench fighting are denied the Signal Service as are spells and even proper reporting of casualties, but sitting at the old buzzer (telegraph instrument) I’ve seen the hottest goes that have taken place north of Gaba Tepe, The first three weeks in this valley were dynamite. This is where we lost poor old Bill Morgan, another man and two more wounded out of my detachment, it’s marvellous how the rest of us missed it, but it is practically as safe as a house now and it is the stillest luck possible now to get hit by a rifle bullet. We have deep saps-wide trenches sft deep with the earth piled high on both sides —and can go anywhere without fear of being hit. Parcels arrive alright when they are well tied and well addressed.”