FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 319, 27 October 1915, Page 3

FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES

THE MEN WHO CAME BACK. A TALE OF HEROISM AND ENDURANCE.

back from the 'valley of the

DEAD

(From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces.)

Gallipoli Peninsula, Aug. 1

The other day three men of the Wilts, haggard and worn, and with their eyes bulging in their sockets, came back literally out of the valley

of death. For a fortnight lollowing the attack on Chunuk Bair, they remained in the Valley of the Sazli Beit, living on what food they could get from dead men’s haversacks and water drawn from a. Turkish well. The 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 were still alive in the valley. They were pretty certain that there were no others alive in the valley. An officer.

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 ou several occasions. Doing 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 but bis body belt and Ibft him in the sun. They shot a private of the 6th North Lancs, who was very far gone, but it seems pretty clear that bis case was hopeless, and that they did this simply to put him out of his misery. The men reached a trench which at one time had apparently been in the hands of the New Zealanders. A private of the sth Wilts got wounded while trying to' escape on the night of the 10th. He was shot in both legs. His comrades did the best they could for him and bound up his wounds, but after nine days he succumbed. As soon as possible after tTie return of these men, one of them 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 of 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, they 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 lookingafter the wounded men. Then one o' the men suggested to the lieutenant that there was no use waiting any longer; but the lieutenant refused + go, saying that it would be 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 days in the valley. Once the men tried to get out of the valley by way of a precipitous slope leading to Rhododendron 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 25th-26th, their voices being distinctly audible, but they did not see the British solders, who subsequently escaped as stated.