Gallipoli biographies
saved from http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Anzac/Quotes.htm
Soldiers: Frank Twisleton, Paul Silva, George
Bollinger
Military Commanders: Alexander Godley, William Malone
Safe sex campaigner: Ettie Rout
Nurse: Evelyn Brooke
Field Ambulance Supervisor: Charles Begg
Chaplain: Henare Te Wainohu
Gallipoli Diaries: William Malone, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Anzac/MaloneDi.htm
George Bollinger, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Anzac/BollDi.htm
These biographies link to essays from the online Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/)
Francis Morphet Twisleton (18731917)
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3T47)
landed at Gallipoli on 20 May 1915.
He wrote a number of private letters which provide an insight into the reality
of trench warfare. Soon he adjusted to the 'very funny sort of life one
leads, we burrow like rabbits and live more or less underground and do most of
our work at night'.
Twisleton took part in the bloody assaults on Bauchop's Hill and Hill 60
during August 1915. In his vivid account of the second of these actions he
described the roar of battle as so overpowering that he felt as though he
'was being driven into the ground by being hit on the head'.
Twisleton was slightly wounded during the initial charge, and took the
opportunity afforded by a lull in the fighting to dig small pieces of shrapnel
out of his leg with his pocket-knife. In the aftermath of the battle for Hill 60
he commanded a post where the stench was appalling because it was partly
constructed out of the bodies of Turkish soldiers. Later he wrote, 'I
felt as though I could scrape the smell of dead men out of my mouth and throat
and stomach in chunks.'
At the beginning of September 1915 Twisleton was evacuated from Gallipoli
with severe dysentery; he did not return. For his bravery and initiative during
the campaign he was awarded the Military Cross and mentioned in dispatches.
Henare Wepiha Te Wainohu (18821920)
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3T23)
was a chaplain during the
Gallipoli campaign. At first there was official opposition to sending Maori
troops into battle, and after months of training in Egypt and garrison duty at
Malta they were becoming restless. Eventually the Maori Contingent was sent to
reinforce the New Zealand troops at Gallipoli, arriving in July 1915. On 6
August they were sent into battle beside their Pakeha comrades at Sari Bair. On
the eve of the battle Te Wainohu preached a sermon that was later much quoted
and which formed the basis for a proverb. As well as exhorting the soldiers to
be fearless in battle and not to turn their backs on the enemy, he reminded them
of their duty to uphold the warrior tradition of the Maori: 'remember
you have the mana, the honour and the good name of the Maori people in
your keeping this night'. This appeal, in particular, gave courage to
the soldiers.
Henare Te Wainohu risked his life for others on many occasions at Gallipoli.
In the company of the medical officer, Major Peter Buck, he carried out the
wounded, distributed water, and comforted the dying - often under fire. He was
wounded in the back in September 1915. After the evacuation of Gallipoli, Te
Wainohu accompanied the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion, in which the contingent
was now integrated, to France.
Ettie Annie Rout (18771936)
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3R31)
In July 1915, during the Gallipoli
campaign, Ettie Rout set up the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood and invited
women between the ages of 30 and 50 to go to Egypt to care for New Zealand
soldiers. In spite of government opposition, she sent the first batch of 12
volunteers to Cairo that October.
Ettie Rout arrived in Egypt in February 1916, and immediately noticed the
soldiers' high venereal disease rate. She saw this as a medical not a moral
problem, one which should be approached like any other disease with all
available preventive measures. She recommended the issue of prophylactic kits
and the establishment of inspected brothels, and tried to persuade the New
Zealand Medical Corps officers to this view, with no success.
Believing that the army was not looking after the men well enough, she opened
the Tel El Kebir Soldiers' Club and later a canteen at El Qantara, to provide
better rest and recreation facilities and better food. For this work she was
mentioned in dispatches and in the Australian official war history.
In June 1917 the venereal disease problem was still very bad so she went to
London to push the New Zealand Medical Corps into adopting prophylactic
measures. She combined the work of several researchers to produce her own
prophylactic kit, containing calomel ointment, condoms and Condy's crystals
(potassium permanganate). She sold these at the New Zealand Medical Soldiers
Club, which she set up at Hornchurch near the New Zealand Convalescent Hospital.
At the end of 1917 the NZEF adopted her kit for free and compulsory
distribution to soldiers going on leave. Ettie Rout received no credit for her
role in the kit's development and adoption, and for the duration of the war the
cabinet banned her from New Zealand newspapers under the War Regulations.
Mention of her brought a possible £100 fine after one of her letters, suggesting
kits and hygienic brothels, had been published in the New Zealand Times.
Ironically, this letter had been instrumental in the decision of the defence
minister, James Allen, to approve kit issue. Others, particularly women's
groups, accused her of trying to make 'vice' safe. Lady Stout led a deputation
of women to ask the prime minister, William Massey, to put an end to Rout's
Hornchurch club.
Evelyn Gertrude Brooke 1879-1962
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3B51)
Evelyn Brooke was appointed matron on the
hospital ship Maheno which embarked for Turkey in July 1915. As a
hospital ship matron she was responsible for all nursing arrangements. Much of
the work was carried out by male orderlies, whom she had to train, but who were
under the command of a non-commissioned officer (the wardmaster). It was thus
necessary for everyone to be tactful and generous, but, from the first, disputes
arose over rank. Nurses were commissioned officers but many male officers
refused to recognise this and the women were 'subjected to a great deal
of unpleasantness'.
Seasickness devastated many of Brooke's staff, and the horrors of war could
not be avoided: during August and September 1915 the Maheno made five
visits to Anzac Cove at Gallipoli. In extreme heat, while bullets raked the
decks, the nurses worked with the 'poor, torn, mangled fellows'
amid the 'horrible sickly odour' of dysentry, disease and
decay.
Brooke returned to New Zealand in January 1916 to be matron of the military
hospital at Trentham.
Paul Thomas Silva (18971974).
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=4S25)
In December 1914 Paul Silva enlisted as a
private in the Auckland Battalion, New Zealand Infantry Brigade. He arrived in
Egypt in March 1915 and on 25 April took part in the Gallipoli landings. Three
weeks later he was shot in the face and spent three days unconscious on a
hospital ship. He received severe injuries to his jaw and his left eye, which
was removed before he regained consciousness. He spent most of the remainder of
the year recuperating in Maltese hospitals. He later became a competitive wood
chopper.
Charles Mackie Begg (18791919)
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3B23)
On 17 April 1915 Charles Begg,
a qualified doctor and Field Ambulance superviser, embarked for Gallipoli from
Alexandria. When the Anzacs landed on 25 April casualties were unexpectedly
heavy. Begg sent his bearer sections ashore while his surgical teams provided
treatment on various ships. These were quickly filled by casualties ferried on
barges and many did not get the surgery they needed. On 28 April Begg dug in a
dressing station on the beach. Surgery began immediately and continued through
incessant shelling and small-arms fire until 27 June, when a Turkish shell
destroyed the station and wounded Begg. Nevertheless, he took his depleted unit
along the beach to start up again under Walker's Ridge. Between 25 April and 5
August the dressing station treated over 15,000 wounded Anzacs.
On 7 August 1915 the New Zealanders suffered grievous losses during their
attack on Chunuk Bair, and the under-staffed Ambulances could not handle the
casualties. On 9 August Colonel Neville Manders, assistant director of medical
services of the New Zealand and Australian division, was shot and Begg took his
place. By this time there was a breakdown in the collection and evacuation of
the wounded, and hundreds were lying unprotected on the beach. When Begg made a
direct approach to Generals Alexander Godley and F. C. Shaw, infantry units
arrived to help the bearers and the navy resumed its barge transport. By 13
August the beach had been cleared. A few days later Begg was taken to a hospital
ship for treatment of para-typhoid fever and was transported to the No 1 General
Hospital, Camberwell, England. After a short convalescence, returned to
Gallipoli at the beginning of November. As winter approached, he helped to plan
the successful withdrawal of troops from the peninsula. General I. S. M.
Hamilton mentioned Begg in dispatches on 26 August 1915, and he was appointed a
CMG on 8 November 1915.
Alexander John Godley (18671957)
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3G12)
On 25 April 1915 the New Zealand and
Australian Division was landed on the Gallipoli peninsula. Major General Godley
and his troops were harshly tested in this campaign. If the men came out with a
better reputation than Godley, it was at least partly because their courage was
supplemented by his training. Godley himself, however, appears not to have
allowed for the steep, rugged ground and the need to reconnoitre it closely, the
very poor communications, the losses of some of his most competent officers, and
the debility of the troops after time spent on the peninsula. Neither should
Godley later have claimed the troops were adequately fed; the food was
appalling.
The New Zealand minister of defence, James Allen, writing to Major General
Andrew Russell, said it would have been better if somebody else had been placed
in command once Godley had completed his training programme. But in 191415 the
alternative, for a then unknown division, would probably have been a
retired British general less competent administratively and even less in touch
operationally. Early in the war neither Andrew Russell nor Edward Chaytor would
have been regarded as qualified for divisional command. Moreover, when questions
were raised in Parliament and elsewhere about Godley and he offered to resign,
Allen publicly supported him.
After the failure of the Gallipoli campaign, the New Zealand Division was
sent to France in 1916 as part of Lieutenant General Birdwood's I ANZAC Corps.
Godley, who had been promoted to lieutenant general in November 1915, was in
command of II ANZAC Corps, to which the New Zealand Division was transferred on
October 1916, after serving in the battle of the Somme.
William George Malone (18591915)
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3M40)
The Wellington battalion, which Malone commanded, landed on the Gallipoli
peninsula on 25 April. Malone immediately began to impose order. By example,
determination and drive he transformed weak defences held by frightened men into
ordered garrisons which dominated their Turkish opponents. He consolidated and
secured the ANZAC Corps perimeter whenever it was threatened. The losses
suffered at Helles on 8 May confirmed for him that 'this is the day of
digging and machine guns and that prepared positions cannot be rushed'.
As post commander at Courtney's Post and Quinn's Post between June and August he
put this into practice by consolidating a precarious position at Quinn's Post,
where an advance of 20 metres by the Turks would have forced the evacuation of
the ANZAC Corps.
Malone fought his superiors for building material and for basic comforts for
his men as fiercely as he fought the Turks. His diaries [http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Anzac/MaloneDi.htm] chart
a growing disenchantment with impractical British regular officers, and a
growing love for his men. Malone would not take 'no' for an answer, and this led
to a clash of wills between him and his New Zealand Infantry Brigade commander,
Colonel F. E. Johnston, and his staff. Malone survived with the support of
Johnston's superiors, Major General Sir A.J. Godley, commander of the New
Zealand and Australian Division, and Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood,
commanding the ANZAC Corps.
Malone was killed during the fight for Chunuk Bair on 8 August 1915.
Extract from Malone's Gallipoli Diary [http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Anzac/MaloneDi.htm]
George Wallace Bollinger (18901917)
(full biography: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=3B39)
The diary [http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Anzac/BollDi.htm]
which Bollinger kept from the time he left Wellington on 16 October 1914
documents superbly the experiences and shifting attitudes of a New Zealand
soldier during the Gallipoli campaign. At first there is unqualified enthusiasm
for battle, expressed in his desire for a 'brush-up' with the 'niggers' of Cairo
and his excitement at departing for the Dardanelles. But when he lands on the
Gallipoli peninsula in the early morning of 26 April 1915, and faces the smells
and the flies and the constant presence of death on a Turkish hillside,
Bollinger's attitude changes. He is openly joyful to be relieved from the
trenches at Cape Helles in early May, and comments that the heroic images of war
in the New Zealand newspapers serve to conceal the ghastly reality. When he
returns to the peninsula in mid August, after a month recovering from gastritis
in Egypt, he is 'very quiet', and by the time he is evacuated to Moϊdhros Bay on
15 September he has become bitter about mismanagement and the betrayal of his
mates' self-sacrifice.
Back in New Zealand the following year, Bollinger, whose father was Bavarian,
was investigated by the Defence Department following complaints from anti-German
campaigners.
Extract from Bollinger's Gallipoli Diary [http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Anzac/BollDi.htm]
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