THE ORIENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1915, Page 5

THE ORIENT.

GHASTLY WORK.

WHOLESALE EXTIRPATION. Received Sept. 22, 9.50 p.m. London, Sept. 22. Lord Bryce's letter adds that the Turks with relentless cruelty are extirpating the Christian Armenians who have not rebelled and are unarmed. Men of military age have been killed, and convoys of Turkish soldiers, composed largely of released criminals, are driving old men and women to unhealthy parts of the deseTt. Many were murdered, and tlie road was strewn with corpses, All will perish sooner or later. The Italian Consul describes how troops drove ten thousand Armenians at Trebizond to the shore, pleaced them in boats, and took them out to sea and threw them overboard, drowning all men, women, and children. In some cases Armenians were saved by accepting the Islam faith, but half a million have been slaughtered, deported, or are now dying of disease and starvation. Germany alone can end the massacres, and America should persuade Germany to exercise her influence to stop such ghastly work.

AT THE DARDANELLES. ' TURKS BEING REINFORCED. Received Sept. 22, 10 pjn. Athens, Sept, 22, The Turks are sending urgent reinforcements to the Dardanelles, and the railways in Thrace are wholly occupied by the transport of troops,

AT OALLIPOLI. SUPPLY OF BOMBS. London, Sept. 21. Mr. Tennant, in reply to Mr. Wedgewood, said the supply of grenade throwers and trench mortars in some weeks exceeded Sir lan Hamilton's demands, but there had been instances where the mortars were below the number required. REFUGEES TAKEN TO PORT SAID. Received Sept. 22, 10 p.m. Paris, Sept. 22. Official: Five thousand Armenians who reached Antioch Bay in July, were kept off by Turks until September, when munitions failed. They succeeded in signalling French cruisers, which conveyed them to Port Said.

STORIES FROM CALL!POLL MEN OF WHOM TO BE PROUD. DEEDS ON THE BATTLEFIELD. He wag a fine looking boy, Berious, earnest, interesting. He declined an offer of liquid refreshment, for he agreed with Colonel Hume that liquor was no good to a soldier, least of all to a wounded man. It was only with the aid of a stick that he could move round. A bullet had caught him in Uhe groin, a bomb Jiad inflicted severe injuries to his head. Each temple was seared an angry red — marking the place where burning plasters were affixed in order that the pains in his head should not drive him out of his reason. "I do not mind telling you anything I can, provided you do not use my name," he said. "It looks too much as though a fellow were 'skiting" to have his name in print, and the other fellows 'out there' don't like it."

This returned hero was in the firingline from April 25th till June 9th. He left with the 3rd Auckland—227 strong when it went into the firing line. When he went out down there, there were only 25 of the original men left on active service.

"We had a terrible gruelling," he said, "for we participated in most of the big engagements, both at Gaba Tepe and at Cape Helles. Two of the first of our officers to go down were Captain Fraser and Lieut. Woolley. They were wounded the first day. We gave them a great reception when they returned to us early in June, for they were both popular. Captain Eraser's luck was out, however, for he had no sooner rejoined us at Quinn's Point than the Turks got him again, this time with a bullet right through the'nose. Sergeant-Major Page was another to go down in the very early stages of the lighting, but he is now doing good work again, and has received promotion." MORE ABOUT COLONEL PJJUGG'E. "What happened to Major Stuckey will for ever, I am afraid, remain a mystery. Major Bailey was killed by a shot from a stroy bullet, fired from the shore, which struck him in the head as we came back on a trawler from Cape 1 Idles. He had been a sick man for a long time before.he was killed. A shot from the Queen Elizabeth landed in one of our trenches and killed a couple of men, and Major Bailey received a shock which would have thoroughly justified him in going into hospital. It was at Krithin. during the big engagement on May 8, that the Third Aucklands suffered so severely. Colonel Plugge was badly wounded there, but like the hero he was he refused to be carried on a stretcher, declaring his weight to be too great for any two men to carry over broken country, and he walked two miles to the beach with a bullet in his back. He was game, and there has been on exaggeration of his acts of bravery. I saw him carry a wounded marine on his back down a precipitous slope, along which we were not allowed to proceed because ot the danger. ANOTHER HERO. "Major Dawson was another real hero about whom nil the good things said are true, I was alongside him at the Krithia 'daisy patch' when he was shot. We had advanced 100 yards beyond the furthest trench, and he stood up to lake observations. 'We will make another rush forward,' he said; but even as he spoke a bullet caught him in the body, piercing the 'lung. We dug him in, and left him for three hours. We advanced 800 yards altogether, but because there were no supports we had to retire, and the ground so dearly won had to be given up. We picked Major Dawson up as we returned, and sent him off to a hospital ship. That probably is one reason why we had to post so many men as missing. We would charge, dig wounded men in, advance further, and then have to retire because the position was too hot to hold, and occasionally we could not carry all our wounded with us. Perhaps it is true that we were too .keen.- We certainly advanced further

on that night of the first advance at Gaba Tcpe than we ever did again during the time I was there. THE BEST OF THEM ALL. "Our fellows are all game, game as pebbles, but perhaps the man I thought most of was Lieutenant Graham Reid. He was the keenest and the best of them all, brave as a lion, and white to the core. They promoted him from corporal to lieutenant on the field. I was with him one day when he got bullets everywhere but in his body. One went through his cap, a second through his water-bottle, a third through his haversack, and a fourth right into his tin of bully beef, from which it was afterwards extracted. Graham Reid was a wonderful organiser, and even before we left Egypt was sent to Alexandria to help in carrying out the equipment of the transports. He would have had a fine military future, and his loss was bitterly felt. Lots of our men who were wounded had marvellous escapes from death. Lieutenant West, for instanoe, waß shot right through the neck, and the bullet missed the jugular vein, the thorax, and the spine. NO PLACE FOR BOYS. "Our first lot of officers were all good men—men who had the confidence of those whom they led. The same, however, cannot be said for the officers who come with the reinforcements. Lotß of thorn are mere boys, and they get rather a bad time. If they are willing to learn, the men help them, but if they haven't enough sense to do that—well, the men simply take no notice of them, but do as their own judgment, prompted by experience, indicates as desirable. The new men with the First Reinforcements naturally did not feel too keenly on their first introduction to the firing line. We went into, and were hard at it, without any prior intimation of what our reception would be, and we've been so hard at it since that we simply kept going, and didn't havu time to feel nervous about anything. The new men came along under different circumstances. Some were only a few days in Egypt, and were naturally scared by the long casualty lists. They were peppgred with shrapnel before they landed, and altogether had a most anxious time before they got to grips. Under these conditions there is no doubt that they did munificently, and settled down with litle delay like old campaigners. But, while men are wanted, and wanted urgently, thore is not the slightest doubt that boy privates, and more particularly boy officers, are not wanted at Qallipoli.