VALLEY OF THE DEAD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 46, 23 October 1915, Page 3

VALLEY OF THE DEAD.

THE MEN WHO CAME BACK. (From Malcolm Ross, Official Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces). Gallipoli Peninsula, Ist August. The other day three men of the Wilts, haggard and worn, and with their eyes bulging in the sockets, came back literally out of the valley of death. For a fortnight following the attack on Chunnk Bair, they remained in the Valley of the Sa/.li Beit, living on what food they could get from dead men’s haversacks and water drawn from a Turkish well. The story they tell is one of enthralling interest. To begin with they got food from a dead Gurkha’s haversack, and afterwards some biscuits from the haversacks of their own dead comrades. They stated that a sergeant of the North Lancs., wounded in both arms, and four men of the sth Wilts Rifles w.ere still alive in the valley. They were pretty certain that there were no others alive in the valley. An officer, a corporal, and five of their comrades, they said, died from starvation and thirst. Originally there were 200 of them, but most of them got out on the night of the lOth-llth August. During the stay of these men in the gully they saw Turks on several occasions. During the last three days the Turks were busy putting barbed wire and sandbags at the top of the gully. The Turks refused to take them prisoners or to give them water. On the night of, the llth-12th the Turks took away a. lot of arms and ammunition. A major, a captain, and a lieutenant, the men stated, were dead in the gully. The Turks stripped one of their wounded of all hut his body belt and leit him in the sun. They shot a private of the 6th North Lancs., avlio was very far gone, but it seems pretty clear that his ease was hopeless, and that they did this simply to put him out of his misery.

The men readied a trench which at one time had apparently b;eu in the hands of the New Zealanders. A private of the sth Wilts got wounded while trying to escape on the night ol the 10th. He was khot in hoth legs. His comrades did the best they could for him, and hound up his wounds, but after nine days he succumbed. As soon as possible after the return of these men, one of them was mounted on a donkey and guided a search party in the night time. This party found the trench as stated, with the articles inside it exactly as described by the returned men, and also the body ol the dead Gurkha. They also found the body of the major, but did not find any of the other men. On the day following their return, when the men had somewhat recovered. thev were able to give some further information. One man was killed and one wounded in trying to escape towards the sea. For three days nothing more was attempted but looking after the wounded. Then one of the men suggested to the lieutenant that there was no use waiting any longer; but the lieutenant refused to go, saying, it would he murder to leave the wounded. This brave fellow seems to have sacrificed his own life through staying on to assist the wounded. At his' instance, the three men remained for three more days in the valley. Once the men tried to get out ol the valley by way of a precipitous slone leading to Rhododenddon Spur, but were fired upon by half-a-dozen Turks, on the opposite side of the valley, and once from their own trenches our men evidently mistaking them for Turks. Turkish patrols were heard/on the night of the 2oth-26tli, their voices being distinctly audible, 1 but they did not see the British so - (tiers, who subsequently escaped as stated.