COLONIALS FIGHT TURKS NAKED.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1915, Page 12

COLONIALS FIGHT TURKS NAKED.

AUSTRALIANS AND NEW ZEALAJJBERB. I London, August 14. Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, in the course of a despatch to the Daily Chronicle and other London papers, dated "Eastern Mediterranean, July 10," and dealing with the role played by the Australians and New Zealanders in the Gallipoli Peninsula, says: "A peculiarity of the colonial soldier which distinguishes him in a marked degree from our own men is his dislike of clothes. I suppose that since the Dervishes made their last charge at Omdurman no such naked army has ever been seen in the field, flhe British Tommy likes to move and work and fight with the majority- of his worldly goods hanging round him. No matter what the state of the temperature, the men in our front trenches sit with their packs on, sweating in the hroiling sun, and will dig trenches without removing a garment, but to find the Australian now wearing anything except a pair of 'shorts' i 3 extremely rare, whether he he in the trenches, in a rest camp or on fatigue, "One by one they have .thrown aside various articles of clothing. First coats went, then shirts, then underclothes. Now a very large number have chucked aside their hoots and puttees, and only a lingering feeling of decency still kept alive by memories of the mixed bathing season at Sydney preserves, the shorts, which, starting a few months ago as trousers, have now arrived half-way up to the thigh. In this primitive costume the Australians and New Zealanders live and work and fight. Their huge frames and gaunt limbs are now burnt by the sun to a dull brick red. "Someone remarked very truly the other day that this campaign at the Dardanelles has only been rendered tolerable by the excellent bathing. I do not suppose any other factor has counted so much in keeping the troops healthy and clean and in restoring their spirits after days and nights in the stuffy, dirty, smelly trenches. Especially do the Australians and New Zealanders love their periodical dips. To them the sea and the sun bath are as the breath of life. From earliest childhood they have been accustomed to live in the water. The bathing at Sydney, where as many as 50,000 men, women and children take the water at the same time, is world famous. Now, straight from the trenches, this endless procession of naked warriors, covered with sand and dirt; never ceases from sunrise to sunset. No sooner is the colonial released from duty than he makes for the water—no matter the snipers and 'bursting shrapnel —for here in far-off Gallipoli for, a short period each day they imagine them-, selves once more under the southern sun and return invigorated and refreshed to the stern work of the, hills above."