QUINN'S POST.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1915, Page 3

QUINN'S POST.

"MY MEN GOT ALL OVER THE TURKS." LETTERS FROM,LATE COLONEL MALONE. " The following extracts from Colonel Malone ahe published in the Stratford Post:— On May 29, my Brigade took over Courtenay's Post and Quinn"s Post, near Gaba Tepe. I was put in charge of Courtenay's Post, and after eight days (day always means day and night here for the Turks, keep up a more or less continuous fire by night), my Battalion was sent to Quinn's Post, instead of going for eight days' "rest" as is the practice! The Post was in a parlous condition and a source of anxiety to our army and divisional commanders. The Turks had been allowed to come so close that in one place there was only about 15ft. between us and them, and they had been allowed to get such a superiority of "fire" and bombing that it was impossible to put up even a periscope without getting it shot away at sight. Fifty yards of the front fire trench had been practically abandoned (the frontage of the Post is about 200 yards). The men in Quinn's Post expected to be undermined by the Turks and blown off tife edge of the cliff on which it rests. It was a delapidated, demoralised and filthy hole. But all it wanted was cleaning, reorganising, repairing and re-arming, and "the cultivation of the domestic virtues? 1 Within a week of our taking over, my men got all over the Turks—shot and bombed them, We scraped and cleaned and reorganised, put in machine guns and I bo cultivated the domestic virtues that the whole character of the place was absolutely altered. We recovered the whole of the abandoned trench. The "terror" had passed to the Turks. They practically abandoned their front trench and gave us best. A deserter told our Headquarters that "they looked upon the fighting as so hazardous in front of Quinn's Post that they had to call for volunteers and to promote every volunteer to corporal, and that the Bhooting from the Post was so deadly that every loophole in the Turks' trench had been closed and it was forbidden to use them. It is now absolutely the safest part of our defences and the most comfortable. Generals Birdwood and Godley are both delighted and relieved, and all this is due to my men, the Wellington Infantry Battalion, I can only take a little credit for the training and the inspiring of them and for insisting on the practice of the "domestic virtues." In addition I iaid down one simple rule, viz,, that for every shot or bomb fired or thrown byr the Turks we fire or throw two. I am proud of my men. To come out of Courtenay's Post after eight days' strenuous trench-fighting, then go into Quinn's, and within eight days more settle the opposing Turks and practically turn Hell into Heaven, is an achievement as great as that of any battalion. Our casualties too were very small. Of this I am prouder than of anything. I enjoyed the work, though it was strenuous enough, with terribly broken sleep. In four weeks we fired 16 mines, under Turkish mines, threw say 5600 bombs and got thrown at us say 200. I leave out the rounds of rifle ammunition. We never fired the machine guns (they are kept as 'surprise packets in case of a big attack) but got any amount of gun fire on to us, front and flanks. This" Post you must know is a pronounced salient and its front trenches are mostly only about 20 or 30 yardß from the Turks' trenches. The greatest distance is 50 yards, the nearest five yards. July 23rd.—I am very well and fit, but thin, as are most of us; no soperfluous fat anywhere. Heat, flies, bullybeef, broken sleep, night and day shooting or fighting or working, don't fatten! But withal, apart from separation from wife and family, am quite happy and enjoy life. This is the kinematograph age all right. Yesterday Ashmead Bartlett (war correspondent) came to Quinn's Post with leave to take K. pictures of it. I showed him round and he took pictures of garrison and trench life, work, and fighting. I gave him a thrill or two. We now get a good few visitors, as the Post is an object of interest and curiosity. I nearly always ask, "Would you like to see the Turks' trenches?" "Oh yes!" and them I walk them up a siding in rear of our trenches and halt them, turn them round about and say "See, those are the Turks' trenches, full length view, distance 350 yards." "But," say they, "can't they shoot us?" "Yes andl think it is time we move down again as they sometimes turn a machine-gun on this track." Thrills! and quick move. Therisk I know is not a big one for it is only on such state occasions or at nighttime that anyone goes up the track and the odds are that no Turk or German is watching the place. But the visitor does not know that and, not being used to such chances, gets a thrill all right. Another thrill is to take them into a tunnel trench with the crown broken in, outside our fire trenches and within 20 yards of the Turks on the same level. Ask them to take a look. As soon as they put their heads through one of the holes in the crown of the tunnel, and so above ground surface, I make them duck quickly and then give them a periscope so that they can safely see, through the hole, the position of things. Then I tell them that sometimes the Turks throw bombs into these holes, or try to. Thrills again! I then take them to the end hole and tell them they are within eight feet of some Turks—which they are. When it is all safely over, which hitherto has been the case, they feel very pleased with themselves and their adventures. They will remember and recount them all thc)ir lives.