A gripping , sad and highly commendable book , it opens with the stunning Gallipoli Diary of Colonel W.G. Malone , commander of the Wellington Infantry Regiment , who led his men to the top of Chunuk Bair on August 8, 1915 , only to be killed by a shell from a British warship which burst over his trench . Born in London , he was a caring man of many parts - a successful farmer in New Zealand , land agent , barrister and solicitor, twice an independent liberal candidate for parliament . His first wife died in childbirth . A Catholic, lover of music and fluent in French , he was 56 when he went ashore at Gallipoli . Two of his sons also joined up , one wounded at Gallipoli, several times in France , and later died ; the other son was wounded , did not return to active service and went home .
There is a photograph of Colonel Malone in Egypt mounted on a horse , The Don. The diary includes comments about Australians, the running of the war, the Turks and their German officers. He voices the opinion that the naval bombardment of the Dardanelles six weeks before the actual invasion was a blunder as it alerted the Turks and enabled them to build up defences , resulting in the subsequent slaughter . Strong criticism of Australians vessels in the large convoy taking troops overseas being lit up at night , chaos in the early part of the Gallipoli landing , leading to the large loss of life , is expressed in his notes. There is also praise for Australian and Kiwi soldiers .
Over the years, this male reviewer has heard it said that dying soldiers out in No Man's Land often called out for their mothers. This was more or less taken for granted, a son calling for his mother who had borne and raised him . For the first time in my memory, however, Colonel Malone's diary said that in the Gallipoli chaos , in the first hours of combat , many brave wounded were brought down , placed on the ground because of a shortage of stretchers . There were no cries or groans , but one said " Oh Daddy", " Oh Daddy " in a low voice.
There is mention of the British warship HMS Majestic bombarding Turkish forts in the Dardanelles and supporting the allied troop landing at Gallipoli. At one stage Colonel Malone arranged for a flag to be raised to direct the Majestic's 12 inch guns to blast Turkish trenches , but fearing it might not be visible, set up a heliograph, a mobile mirror signalling device , which achieved the desired result on the enemy.
The Majestic had to destroy the abandoned British submarine E15 to prevent it from being captured and was itself sunk by a submarine on May 27 , 1915 by a U-boat, with a loss of 49 lives. [A model of HMS Majestic recently appeared on the Antiques Roadshow.]
Colonel Malone once kept himself warm trying to sleep on the ground on the bitterly cold slopes of Gallipoli with a great coat taken from a dead Australian soldier . Other scraps of clothing from the battlefield , such as a cardigan , were retrieved , blankets in short supply . Flies, fleas, lice, blood and guts, five acres of putrefying Turkish dead , sudden death , boils, footrot, dermatitis , dysentery , spinal meningitis ...
His references to his second wife, addressed as Mater , are deeply touching . In his last affectionate letter to her, three days before he was killed, he said he was prepared for death and that his will in his Stratford office back home would keep her and the young children in ease and comfort . In 1923 , a white arch was erected at Stratford by the Wellington Regiment in memory of Colonel Malone and his photograph is on a large collection of Stratford dead in an arcade in the town's main street.
One soldier's diary account of his involvement in the war was written in Pitman's shorthand and not transcribed until l983.
Covered here is the senseless and terrible Passchendale battle of October 1917 in which 640 New Zealand soldiers were killed in two hours. Hard tack served the troops broke false teeth and caused other dental problems. There is critical comment about a minister of religion who threw chunks of black coal at "Niggers" who came alongside a troopship.
Published by Allen and Unwin /Port Nicholson Press,Wellington, 1988, it is well illustrated , with maps , one surprising photograph showing a large white Kiwi figure carved in the hill behind the training centre , Sling Camp , Wiltshire , where the ancient famous chalk horses are located . There are photos of the fighting men and their families , one of a child born soon after the departure of his father overseas, later killed carrying a lucky coin ; the struggles and strikes by miners on the home front over conscription , this issue recently covered in Little Darwin .
In 1914 , aged 20, Walter Carruthers joined up and became a stretcher bearer. Admitting to blushing in the presence of girls , he wrote home to his fiancée after years of torrid warfare and told her to break off their relationship as he felt " a cad " having met some nice girls on leave , the feeling between him and his fiancée probably " calf love."
Having already received a medal for bravery and promoted , soon after he captured some Germans but was shot in the head by an officer and died instantly . He was buried on the Hindenburg Line a few months before the end of the war... his personal possessions sent home to his parents. A regimental chaplain wrote to the fiancée , " being a person interested in the late Lieutenant Carruthers", saying he had lived a noble life and died a hero, a gentleman .
As you read the personal accounts of these men you feel as if you know them and begin to wish , unreasonably hope, as your turn the page, each one will somehow survive the bloodbath, repeatedly , inappropriately described in dealings with WW1 as a "great adventure ." In the case of Australia , Gallipoli , often wrongly described as the birth of the nation , the coming of age , appeals to the new age of jingoism, drum beating and commercial and political exploitation of the disaster . Australia became a nation in 1901 with Federation and was way ahead of the rest of the world in many social and democratic reforms . The Gallipoli campaign was an absolute disaster which Rupert Murdoch's journalist father revealed, playing a part in the decision to withdraw from the hellhole . A tragic anecdote in the book is the statement by an Australian soldier who survived Gallipoli telling Kiwis he would not care to be home in Australia when news comes through that they had "abandoned " Gallipoli. - (Peter Simon )
