THE MAN THEY LEFT BEHIND THEM...

Radio Record, 29 April 1938, Page 10

THE MAN THEY LEFT

BEHIND THEM...

By

WILL

GRAVE

HiSTORY WAS MADE ON BROKEN HILLS OF ANZAC

HIS week the men of Anzac, from New Zealand and Australia, have jeined in Sydney to honour their dead comrades and to revive the memories of those days of hell end heroism on Gallipoli. Few people knew, until Colonel J. G. Hughes told the tale from 2YA last week, that the whole undertaking was nearly abandoned almost as soon as the landing had taken place. The strange tale of how those days might never have been is told here for Record’ readers in an interview with the man whom last week the Anzaes left behind them.

AST week the " troopships © Maunganui and Monewai left Wellington with 1300 exsoldiers to attend the Anzac Day celebrations 11 Sydney during the 150th Anniversary year of New South Wales.

The scenes ut the wharfside were reminiscent of the ‘war days. The men sang the old songs and shouted te their friends, and.the bugles rung out a farewell. On the hillside in Wellington was a New Zealander who had seen nearly 6O years of soldiering. He had fought in the Boer War and the Great War. He was not going on the traspships to Sydney. + Asa bey in Timaru, he had seen the troops come back rrom. Parihaka, in Taranaki. That was in 1881, when Te Whiti, the Maori prophet. was quietly defying the New Zealand. Government. The men had marched through the streets of Timaru in their blue serge nniforms with Glen. garry cups, Singing "The Spanish Cavalier." "T was gone from that moment," Colonel J. G. Elighe. fold me. "I knew I'd be a soldier."

The Officer Snorted

IS brother was a sergeant in the battery at Timaru, The boy joined-up with the battery as a gunner. Colonel Newall, the officer in charge, inspected the five new recruits that long-ago day on parade. He came to the youngster, stopped and snorted. The man to-flay is very small, he was even smaller then. The colonel put the recruits through some of the manual, The youngster had learned it all up from his brother, and he did well. "That second nan from the right will be a smart gunner," said Colonel Newall. Recruit J. G..Mughes-known to his friends as ‘Jackie’ -stuck out his chest with pride. "My chest, was sore with stieking out that nicht." he told me last week. It was the army for him from then on. ail a eareer that has brought him adventure and risk and the happiness of rich memories-and some heartbreaks.

ONE of them must have been that of being left behind last week when the troopships sailed for Sydney. "T thought you would have been ou the way to Australia by now," I said. "Well," he said, "T had honed..."

rie stopped there. and left it at that. And as he told me about his soldiering days and the Boer War, and the landing at Anzac Cove, the wistfulness went out of his eyes. All the same, I could not help wondering why something hadn't been done about it. It seemed odd to think that While all his comrades were in Sydney, the senior returned soldier of New Zealand, the first New Zealander to earn his commission in the field, and the first New Zealander to win the D.S.0., should be sitting alone on his verandah in Wellington.

Listeners Were Lucky

HAT, as it happened, was a good thing for listeners. They heard him tell from Station 2YA for the NBS Fatt week the strange story of the decision to evacuate Galipoli on the first night of the landing-a decision that was altered at the eleventh hour. It is a story which few people know of a moment that might have appreciably changed the course of history. He told it to me for "Record" readers. AS soon as the Great War broke out, Colonel Hughes had volunteered, aged 49 But at first, General Godley, officer in command of the New Zealand Forces, would not take hin, He sent him to Palmerston to take command of the district. At the end of a fortnight he wired to Colonel Tfughes to come as his military secretary. They sailed for logy pt. From Alexandria they set off in the Lutzow, a German ship commaudeered by the Allies, for landlocked,.-Mudros Harbour, There the troops practised landing. . Soon they sailed on for Anzac Cove. ‘The Lutzow threaded her way through the enormous number of: ships in Mudros Harbour, with bands playing, flags flying. and wheering from the men, She threaded through the British Fleet, then through

the French and Russian fleets, and out into the night. The men spent a quiet evening writing letters and singing hymns. "[T WAS not in the first eschelon at Anzac Cove," said Colonel Hughes, "and I was due for the second eschelon. We got our landing parties away and then steamed across to the Island of Imbros. A destroyer signalled to us that the first three landings had been successful. Next, a destroyer signalled to us to come back to Anzac Cove and take off the wounded." The Lutzow came back to the cove and came inside the shipping, as close to shore as possible. It had no doctor on board, only a veterinary surgeon. Then, at 11 p.m., came a message from a destroyer: "Send all boats ashore. The troops are going to re-embark."

Bitter Thoughts

OLONEL HUGHES manned 16 boats immediately and stroked the leading crew. He had rowed many a houtrace in New Zealand, and had his share of disappointments at his defeats. But no boatrace had even filled him with such bitter thoughts as this, when victory seemed to be lost before the struggle was begun. "T waded ashore," he said. "and went along the beach. There I met General Godley, General Bridges and General Birdwood in conference. I told General Godley the message we had got, and there was a long pause. Then General Godley said, ‘You must wait,’ " Colonel Hughes waited with his men on the beach while the big decision was being considered. The landing on Gallipoli had been made that morning, and now the evacuation was to take place that night. But one of the commanding officers, an English Admiral, swore he would not leave. "After a time, I went along to the General again," said Colonel Hughes. "This time he said to me, ‘Get back to the ship with the boats.’ The decision had been made to remain. They packed the Lutzow with wounded for Alexandria, and Colonel Hughes and the men dug in on Gallipoli. For over three months Colonel Hughes took part in the Gallipoli: campaign, taking over the command of the Canterbury Regiment from June 3 and holding the position until after the August push on Gallipoli. "It was a different sort of campaign from what we thought," he said. "On the Lutzow I had brought my three polo ponies, and the staff had their horses. There was even a car on the ship. We thought we were going to ride into Gallipoli."

E was invalided from Gallipoli with typhoid, para typhoid, dysentery. inflammation of the lungs, acute Jumbago and rheumatic iritis-a dangerous disease of the eye. For six months he ¥e}s in ‘a London hospital while plhysicians worked to save his life and his sight.. "TI would have died if ’d known ¥. was so ill," said Colonel Hughes. "But in the early stages I was only annoyed, and kept asking them why they didn’t do something for my lumbago." WV HEN he got out of hospital he was able to totter along to the first Anzac parade in London. King George was present, and General Birdwood, who was just back from the Peninsula. General Birdwood was the man of the moment at that first parade, and his name was on everyone’s lips. ' Standing alone on the footpath, after the service; Sir Tan and Lady

Hamilton seemed strangely neglected to the colonial soldier. He went across.to speak with them. When he had remembered himself to the General and said he had served under him in the South African and Gallipoli campaigns, Lady Hamilton took his hand in both of hers and pressed it warmly. He had an impression that she was grateful that some soldier should have thought of them that day.

Remembrance

OLONEL HUGHES was silent for a moment. -He was looking back over a past in which he had.lived to the full. It was a long way back to the days when Colonel Newall had said the second man from the right would be a smart soldier. * He remembered the Boer War, where he had fought under Kitchener and Lord Roberts and

General Haig. There had been the return from South Africa of the first batch of timeexpired troops through Australia under his command, and their tumultuous reception at Adelaide, where women mobbed the soldiers in the streets to kiss thei. THERE had been a period abroad around 1909 when. he was sent overseas from New Zealand to be attached to the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and had been chosen, with General Davis, to represent New Zealand at the funeral of King Edward the Seventh. Four Canadians, these two New Zealanders, four Australians and four South Africans had been chosen to march just at the rear of the firing party and in front of the cortege. All the crowned heads of Europe were there, including the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, "the most marked man there, ‘on 3 beautiful grey charger." (Continued ‘on page’ 39.) .

Anzac History.-.

The Man They Left

(Continued from page 11.) LL this he remembered, and much more... days when he played every game under the sky, when he fished, had days of cricket in the sun, rode at polo, played forward in the Hawke’s Bay Rugby pack at the weight of nine stone... played Dick Dead Hye in the "Pirates of Penzance" .. . The screen of his memory shows a continuous film of entertainment. GOT my ambition," he told me. "T’ve never been rich in my life, but I’ve had a gorgeous time. I look round at my rich pals and I don’t envy one of them. "Not long ago I picked up a book on happiness, by Baden Powell. It had a preface by one of the millionaire Cadburys that was very true. "ve got stakes in England and Scotland and Ireland,’ he said, ‘but I can only sleep in one bed. True happiness is to marry ‘happily and have children’. . .