100 Kiwi Stories from WWI: Letters to mum reveal sense of wonder

Men from the Wellington Mounted Rifles at Gallipoli.

Writing home, trooper Mick Newton marvelled at his new experiences, told of the tedium of waiting to go into battle and his eagerness to fight.

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Keeping in touch

Trooper Ralph (Mick) Newton's series of letters to his mum told the story of his war.

They tell of the wonder of a 21-year-old from Gisborne at seeing the world, the tedium of waiting to go into battle and his enthusiasm for the fight.

The letters to his mother Annie began on February 17, 1915, while he was aboard the troopship Aparima and are abridged here:

"Dear Mum,

"A further day over and still alive and kicking ... The tucker we're having is very good."

The menu included "lashings of pickles at all three meals, roast beef, plum duff and stewed rhubarb".

Trooper R.J. Newton, aka Mick Newton, of Wellington Mounted Rifles was killed in his first and only charge.

As was typical he signed off with "love to all, your son Mick".

Barely out of his teens, he was a driver at a quarry on the outskirts of Gisborne when he joined up in December 1914. After training at Trentham he was in the third wave of reinforcements for the Gallipoli-bound Wellington Mounted Rifles, first stop Albany in southwest Australia then Colombo in then Ceylon, before the big New Zealand staging camp near Cairo.

Life aboard what was the slowest ship in the four-vessel convoy was mainly tedious and he mused about food and sent frequent requests for socks from his mother - on her own in the tiny township of Muriwai 25km south of Gisborne.

"The Government ones are done and those we get in the canteen are very poor quality," he wrote while steaming up the Australian coast in late February, adding: "One man deserted at Albany and another put ashore sick making two less to feed."

The weather was heating up, a horse died, Mick's horse was very sick and he had his first feed of tripe.

Near the Cocos Island he wrote how flying fish were landing on the deck and on March 7 described the "sad sight" of a Maori soldier who died of pneumonia aboard another ship being lowered into the sea and "the last post was blown on all boats".

From Colombo on March 12 he wrote of visiting a Buddhist temple and a rickshaw ride which ended badly for the driver after a run-in with a local policeman.

After setting off from Colombo on March 19 one man died of sunstroke.

A Dead Man's Penny was given to families of soldiers who died. Photo / Greg Bowker

"We also saw a big school of porpoises, they travelled on each side of the boat for a good way until some of D Squadron started target practice. They went a lot faster when the chaps started firing at them."

He reached Zeitoum Camp near Cairo in late March, described a visit to "Virgin Mary's Well" and the tree she was said to have sheltered under on the way to Bethlehem.

He also got leave to visit the pyramids and the Sphinx which was "very well carved. I will get a photograph of it for you", and he went on to describe clambering through the neighbouring temple to the burial chamber of a king.

"Life altogether is twice as easy as it was in Trentham. The tucker is good."

On April 7: "Dear Mum: I am sending you a few beads out of an old Egyptian grave. They are the genuine article as I saw them dug out myself." He went on to say: "The infantry left tonight for the Dardanelles. We do not know when we are to get a shift. I will close now as I want to see the infantry march out."

On April 17 he wrote: "Second reinforcements of infantry have left for the Dardanelles. There is no sign of any us mounteds going away yet, in fact I think we are here for life."

Letters from his mother had not reached him since he left Trentham "so I am looking forward to one shortly. I sent you a silk scarf - hope you get it safely. I am your loving son, Mick."

Then on what was to become Anzac Day he described what had been a deserted camp getting lively once more, flies that were very bad and clouds of locusts.

He sent another plea for socks; "we can not get wool sox at any price here."

On May 7 he told of how the New Zealand and Australian troops were "according to camp reports making a great name for themselves".

But a hotel at nearby Heliopolis had been converted into a hospital and "there were a terrible lot killed and wounded".

June 17: "The last three days have averaged 116F (46.6C) in the shade. There were five deaths from sunstroke among the English."

August 8: "The captain of our old football team arrived here in the 5th Infantry. We expect to go away in a few days now and we'll not be sorry I can tell you."

August 13: "I do not know whether you have sent those socks to me ... but if you sent them I will get them over at the Dardanelles as the mail is more regular there than here.

"Some good news has been given out to us on parade about the Dardanelles but as it has not been published in the paper yet I had better not say anything as all our letters are censored.

"I am in the next lot for the Dardanelles - we are leaving in a few days and I can tell you that I am not sorry to get out of this."

August 20 from the SS Melville near Lemnos Island in Greece: "The harbour is a grand sight. I saw my first submarine on my way here and I also saw one in the harbour. We have had a good time on this boat so far, plenty of tucker.

"I do not know when we are leaving here so good luck to all. Your son, Mick."

This was the last letter Annie Newton received from her son.

Around September 22 there was a flurry of telegrams through the Post Office at Muriwai informing her he had been killed at Gallipoli on August 27.

Included was a message sent on behalf of King George V "to assure you of the true sympathy of His Majesty" and another sent by Prime Minister William Massey who said she would "derive some consolation in the fact that your son bravely gave his life for his country and Empire".

Then came letters from his mates.

On November 6 Frederick McKinstry wrote to Annie.

"We miss him no little and also many others from Gisborne who fell on the fateful 27th August. I am sorry to say I did not see him after the charge. I was lucky enough to get right through but others who saw him and buried him tell me ... how he fought and died. In one spot he and two Australians got to it and although the three were killed so also were a dozen Turks."

Trooper George Bartels worked with Mick in the Matawhero gravel pits for the Gisborne Borough Council and wrote on March 30 the following year: "It was terribly hard luck for him. He was always so keen to get into the firing line and to have a real good go. He had his wish fulfilled poor lad but it was his first and only charge."

Mick was killed during the battle for what historians say was a strategically unimportant bump in the landscape, generously called Hill 60.

The official record of the Wellington Mounted Rifles tells of trenches filled so deep with dead bodies on the night of August 27 that it was difficult to evacuate the wounded.

British historian Robert Rhodes James later wrote: "For connoisseurs of military futility, valour, incompetence and determination, the attacks on Hill 60 are in a class of their own."

Mick Newton doesn't have a grave on Hill 60 but is listed on a squat memorial there and on the wall of the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

A soldier with him that night later told his half brother Jack Newton the impression that Mick took out many Turks during his brief charge was not right - he died without firing a shot.

Mick Newton was Grant Bradley's great uncle.