HOW A CHAPLAIN DIED.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 2 December 1915, Page 3

HOW A CHAPLAIN DIED.

GALLANT SELF-SACRIFICE. EFFORTS TO RESCUE SOLDIER. STORY FROM GALLIPOLI. “We have a fine lot of fighting parsons in our Australian army,” says Trooper Bluegum in writing from Anzac to the Sydney Morning Herald. “Here, indeed, you see the Church militant; soldier saints, who like the Crusaders of old, have embarked on the great adventure, and go forth into battle with a sword in one hand and a Bible in the other. Some are serving in the ranks, having exchanged the study for the stricken field: the pulpit for the platoon. Others are in the Army Medical Corps, heroes of the Red Cross of Geneva. Seme have been wounded and some killed.

“The first of the Australian army chaplains to be killed on Gallipoli was Chaplain-Captain Andrew Gillison, of the 14th B'attalion. 4th Infantry Brigade. Prior to the war —and that seems a long, long time ago—he was minister of St. George’s Presbyterian Church. East St. Kiida, and before that was at St. Paul’s, Brisbane. He was wellknown and greatly loved throughout the whole Presbyterian Church of Australia. He was no sour-visaged, longfaced Christian. His religion was cheerful, optimistic, and joyous. I met him at St. Andrew’s, Cairo, and then I knew why the 4th Brigade almost worshipped him. It was meet that such a man should die giving his life for another. Greater love hath no man than this; and Andrew Gillison would not have willed it otherwise. It was while performing a work of necessity and mercy on Sunday morning, August 22nd, that he was shot, and he died a few hours afterwards.

"The New Zealand and Australian Division had made a most gallant attack on the hills occupied by the Turks. Pressing 'home the attack with the bafonet, they drove the enemy from trench to trench, and from ridge to ridge. Deeds of valour were performed day after day, and night after night. Heroes died on every side, with no historian to tell how gallantly they died. One of these young Australians was wounded in the charge, and lay some distance behind the advanced position. TWO FIGHTING PARSONS. “It was then that two fighting parsons came along a communication trench, whirh was comparatively safe from rifle fire, but offering little protection from shrapnel. Prom a slight hollow they saw the wounded man, in evident agony, raise his hand, and try to move. Captain Gillison and Corporal Pittenrigh—who is a.Methodist minister when not a soldier decided to try to effect a rescue, though they knew a machine-gun was trained on the trench, and had been warned to beware of snipers. Mounting the parapet, they crawled along some distance towards the wounded man. A couple of bullets zipped by, but they pushed on. More bullets flew, and both the res-

cuers were wounded.!

“Then they tried to regain the shelter of the trench, and Gillison was wounded again, but his companion managed to scramble in. Mortally wounded in the chest and the side, the poor chaplain lay in the open, but was soon carried in and conveyed to the field hospital. He was conscious for a while and cheerful, though he knew his hours were numbered. Before two o’clock he was dead, dying as he lived, a gallant Christian soldier.

LEFT ALO[NE IN HIS GLORY. “That night, wrapped in a Union Jack, he was burled. It was brigm moonlight. Out in the Aegean the warships and hospital ships lay passive. Back in. the hills sounded the ceaseless rattle cf musketry. Chaplain-Colonel E. N. Merrington conducted a brief service, at ■which w r ere chaplains cf all denominations and several officers and men of his brigade and battalion. The little shallow 1- grave lie; a course of miles north of Anzac, on the edge of the five-mile beach that stretches on to Suvla Bay. As with the hero of Corunna, ‘we carved not a line, w r e raised not a stone, but left him alone in his glory.’ His comrades went back 'to the firing-line with the memory of his selfsacrifice to cheer them on. Soon the battalion will erect a little w-ooden cross over his grave. There are so many of these little crosses all over Gallipo'i. But we who knew' and loved him will never forget Andrew Gillison.”