HOBBY OF GETTING WOUNDED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 290, 6 July 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOBBY OF GETTING WOUNDED.

ASTONISHING RECORD OP GENERAL CARTON DE WIART. When I heard that a man who had won the VC. and the D.S.O .and had been wounded eight times and had become a brigadier-general at the age of thirty-three, had been wounded again in the present push, 1 pictured a swashbuckler. I thought of d'Artagnan and a swishing sword and flowing feathers and a jaunty mien. Not so. Brigadier-General Adrian Carton de Wiart, VC, D.5.0., who received his ninth wound in tho first hour of the battle of Arras, : s one of the quietest and most retiring men ever seen in London. This hero of the South African campaign, the Somaliland campaign, and the present war is a calm, unassuming man, who, between wars, plays polo, rides horses', quietly, and evades notoriety. Recently he received a fragment of .shrapnel in the ear. He had already in previous fights lost one eye and one arm. All lie wanted when he was wounded was a stopping of the blood, a binding up of his ear. and a continuation of the fighting. He is still fight-

ing. In his manner, whether in London, where he is well known, or away at the front, Jie is* the exact opposite of the swashbuckler. He is of cheerful disposition, but is not given to jokes or hilarity. Being wounded comes natural to him. DAUNTLESS COURAGE. Brigadier-General Adrian Carton de Wiart was born in Belgium, educated at Egbaston and Balliol, and 1 is a ypartsman and a soldier. Here is an extract from the official account of the deeds for which he was awarded the V.C :

For most conspicuous bravery, coolness, and determination during severe operations of a prolonged nature.' It was owing in a great measure to his dauntless courage and inspiring example that a serious reverse was averted. . . . After three other battalion commanders had liecome casualties, he controlled their commands and ensured that the ground won was maintained at all costs . . • passing unflinchingly through lire barrage of the must intense nature. Serving in the Imperial Yeomanry in the South African war, he way wounded twice. Later he obtained a commission in the 4th Dragoon Guards, and in 1!)10 he was promoted to the rank of captain. He was adjutant of the Gloucestershire Ye'imanrv 1911-14. He was mentioned : n despatches and awarded the D.S.O. It was in the Somaliland campaign that he lost an eve, and it was in the present war in Flanders that he lost his left arm. Then he commanded a Gloucestershire corps and was wounded nt La Boiselle. The links of his family with Engh.nd are manv. One of his cousins is Monsigicr Carton de Wiart, treasurer to the Cardinal Archbishop ol Westminster. Another is the Chevalier Carton de Wiart, of the Belgian Bank in the City of London. His father was a, lending official in Egypt and a great friend nf the late Lord Cromer in the

ve'M of the making of modern Egypt. One ol' liis cousins served in Kgvpt with Kitchener. C.T.K. in the "Daily Express." series of Roosovoltian adjectives, the colonel said: - '•[ am greatly rejoiced, and 1 congratulate t !i " raplain, the gunners, and all the crew of the Mongolia. Thank heaven, some Americans have at last begun to hit. We have been Pltogether too long purely at the receiving end of this war Germany has

v, aged on us." Colcnel Roosevelt beamed with Pleasure when told that the gun crew bad dubbed their gun "Thecdore I^oosevelt."