SOLDIERS’ LETTERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 65, 16 July 1915, Page 2

SOLDIERS’ LETTERS.

THE NEW ZEALAND ARTILLERY

|),iver Stanley HoJjinson gmes somfe interesting news of the artillery in the Dardanelles in a letter to hi 1 - parents. —The following extracts are published with the permission of Mr I{. H. Robinson. The Artillery went to the Dardanelles. but wo could not all got ashore. We sent all the gun s and gunners ashore, but the drivers in charge of the horses of course had to stay with them. We were anchoret! fairly dose the heach lor some weeks, hut 1 1,,, horses got so very weak stunting s 0 long that it was alhn'st essential 1 |,at we shoe’i bring them hack TTiere they could be properly exercised and properly cared for. . . Mo want everything right up to the mark for these Turks are no slugs; its their last chance, and there’s no [doubt they are fighting hard out ami (out for a win; but not if we know it. Sir fan Hamilton remarks that the (Australasian troops are either the jbest fighters in the world or else thev are all maniacs. However, we [imisn’t blow our own trumpets. It’s ‘a Long Way to Tipperary. . . . Dmjiug the time we were anchored in toe Hay, we saw a number of big shells dropping into the water, possibly the> were from the Goeben. We could not see the l>oat as it was on the other side of the Peninsula, but the ground we believe she was shooting ovei w not very high. They managed to hit a coaling boat, hut the slid! hit high and right aft, so that I don’t thing a great deal of damage was done. . . • Another incident occurred just on dusk. A German aeroplane passed right over our boat, but very high up. and dropped a couple of bombs, but there was a fairly stiff breeze blowing, and consequently tbe bombs were carried away fifty or sixt\ yards from our boat I am

writing this in a tent, the temperature is 110 in the shade, and the Hies are something awful. We work from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. and take the horses down to the beach for a swim, and don’t they enjoy it. We don’t do anything from seven till eleven-thirty when we just feed and water I’ll noon, and then do an hour’s groom’ng at night. It is a great life.