LETTER FROM SERGT. PHIL BENNETT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1506, 5 February 1916, Page 2

LETTER FROM SERGT. PHIL BENNETT.

Sergeant Phil Bennett, who won the D.C.M.on April 26th at Gaba Tepe, tor maintaining a supply of ammunition for the machine guns under the heaviest fire, and who was wounded at the Dardanelles and was subsequently invalided to England, writes an interesting letter to bis sister, who is the adopted daughter of Mr and Mrs C. Rand, ot Foxton. Sergt. Bennett was born in Foxton on what is now the Mouloa Estate, and subsequently was employed in newspaper offices at Masterton, Wanganui and Palmerston. He enlisted at Wanganui. Sergt. Bennett was wounded in the left hip, and was discharged as unfit for further military service. The letter to his sister was written from the New Zealand Record Office, 13 Victoria Street, Eondon. In acknowledging receipt of his sister’s letters, he says : “Yours of March 21st and July 12th are to hand, and I am very pleased to get them. No mere expression on paper can tell you how we, who are so far away from you all, feel your kindness in remembering us. To get on with the washing: When I finished with Guy’s Hospital on September 13th, 1 was immediately offered, and accepted, a job on the staff of our record office in London. The good news that I had Won the D.C.M. came to me the same week (six weeks after you knew of it), and as with it I was promoted sergeant, I think I can say my luck was in. If I bad not got this job you would have had this old cripple hobbling around in your midst, but he will come back some day, perhaps. The work I was put on was that of going round to the hospitals in England in which our men are, visiting the men and attending to their wants here, as far as is possible from here. The size of this job can be guaged when I tell you that when I took it on there were close on 5,000 New Zea* landers in England, and they were scattered in four hundred hospitals all over the country. Though the first figure has diminished somewhat the latter has not, and all in the office are still kept working at top gear. Of course, lam seeing a good deal of England, but though there is convenience in the fast travelling, one cannot form much of an opinion of the towns or the country passed through, and when I do pull up at a town, there is always so much to do that there is not much time left for sight-seeing. That will all come in its own good time. The work is very tiring, and my rotten old leg does not improve matters, but I feel that the chaps appreciate my visit and that they are pleased to see me, and you know that that makes up for a lot of the personal inconvenience and fag. I have been over to Guy’s Hospital all day seeing the doctors. Sir Arbuthnot Lane and Major Fagge, two of the best joint surgeons in England, have me under their care, and to day they strongly recommended me to go into hospital at once and have the bullet removed. This I have decided to do, and by the time this letter reaches you I hope to be out and about again.”