RELEASED FROM TURKEY.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 February 1918, Page 6

RELEASED FROM TURKEY.

A NEW ZEALANND WAR • PRISONER'S STORY. LONDON, February 20. Corporal A. Shoebridge, 10/563 Welamong the first prisoners to arrive from Turkey. He states that he was engaged in the attack on Anafarta in 1915, when the Anzaes were forced to retire. He was left on the field, shot in the elbow, and was taken with other New Zealanders from Gallipoli in a jolting cart. They were stopped on the roadside by an old Turkish woman, who delaboured them with a heavy stick, killing his mate who was suffering from a serious bayonet' wound in the- stomach. His body was left on the roadside. Shoebridge was sent to a good hospital in Constantinople, A few days afterwards they were told that the British were ill-treating Turkish prisoners and as a reprisal they were sent to a building like stables, with the windows boarded "up. They laid on a dirty floor, with one blanket each, and thair wounds unattended. Later they were sent to. various hospitals. Throughout their treatment their food was wretched, consisting of bread, boiled wheat, and potatoes, Other prisoners state that the British prisoners died like flies, and were buried unclothed and uncoffined in holes holding four. The condition of prisoners from Kut was indescribable. At first they could not believe they were British. Some were clad.in.a shirt only. The prisoners received four pounds monthly from the Americans, and then the Dutch Consul was permitted to buy food, The prices were terrible. They were ten weeks in Austria en route, where the food was worse and scarcer than in Turkey. The conditions in Turkey have now much improved