BLUFFING GERMANS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1917, Page 6

BLUFFING GERMANS.

QUEENSLAND SERGEANT'S EXPLOIT. An amazing exploit stnnds to the ere'dit of Sergt. H..'Buchanan, of Gympie, who returned with some Qneenslanders to Sydney recently. At Mouquet Farm, on 15th September last year, while stret-cher-bearing, Jie entered a German dugout in a position which had just been taken by the Australians. He was searching for wounded at the time, not 60 much with the intention Of transporting any he should find immediately to safety as to minister to their imperative medical needs. To his amazement he saw. as he flashed his electric torchlight into the cavern, that it was full of Germans, all armed. 'Eighteen of them wer<? there —three officers and 15 men. Buchanan was unarmed, but he held what turned out to be quite a potent weapon—an iodine bottle. He seized up the situation at a glance, / "Come out, Fritz," he yelled, threateningly. In the glare of the torchlight the Hlitis were completely taken aback. One of them, who understood a little English, replied fearfully: "No—if ye coom out, you vos kill u3." 'Well," replied Buchanan, with vast Anzac impudence, "if you don't come out I'll bring you out!" Thereat, Buchanan raised the bottle of iodine in the glare of the torchlight, as though it were a bomb which he intended to hurl into the mob of them. Thi3 vas enough for the Fritzes—they streamed forth. They were so anxious to meet him that they could have embraced' him. Thus, single-handed, this Australian captured the whole IS of them.

Buchanan won the Military Medal at Pozieres in August last year. He was acting as regimental stretcher-bearer, and gained the decoration for courage in attending to wounded under fire. For his dugout exploit in capturing the Iluns lie was awarded a bar to the Military Medal. He enlisted in August, l!) 14, and was wounded in the Gallipoli landing—shrapnel in one arm. The resultant flesh-wound sent him to hospital in Alexandria, whence lie returned to A«zac. After Gallipoli was abandoned he went to France. He was wounded by a bayonet in one arm and the chest at Pozieres at the,time of,his winning the Military Medal, and was sent to Rouen, Back one more in the line, he was wounded for the third time, in November, receiving a small piece of shell in the left hand. "In France," lie said, "I dressed a bad case—Private Vitler —\v3i(o came back with us and went to his home in South Australia. Vitler. had no less than 4G separate wounds. He j>ot therti all from the contents of a whiz-bang shell between 11 p.m. and midnight. I was pretty close to him just then, and managed to get to him three minutes after he was hit. Forty-twd of his wounds were blighty-knocks, all from the hip down. He subsequently v lost a foot—nothing more. It took me two solid hours to dress him. He was perforated all over the place below where I have said, and the same shell wounded Sergt. Biody, who was near. I had no morphia, but Vitler did not even lose consiousness. •'I am satisfied at getting home again," 'Buchanan proceeded, "and to have a look at the old place; but if the doctor says 'Yes' I will be back to the war, because no man can afford to hang out if he can net awiur,"