Lieutenant Shoosmith
Tuesday 17th
August: We have heard more of Lieutenant Frank Shoosmith of Luton and his
gallantry on Sunday. Nearly all the NCOs and men of his Machine Gun Section
were knocked out; but still, with only one man to aid him, he fought his guns
with the greatest gallantry, simply sweeping the ground ahead and clearing the
way for the advance of his comrades.
Major J E
Hill at once saw the straits to which the Machine Gun Section was reduced and,
going across to Shoosmith. He tells us that he asked him: “Who is to fight the
gun if you get knocked out? No one else knows enough about it up here; your
section is gone, and you had better show me how to do it”. The breezy answer he
received from young Shoosmith was: “Oh, you just pull this and press that! It’s
quite simple”. As Major Hill remarks: “And during this conversation, mark you,
Shoosmith was pumping hell into the Turks”.
Lieutenant F
W Ballance, a Dunstable officer, who was reported to be wounded, is now in the
Australian Hospital at Lemnos Island. Lieutenant Ballance says his mess-tin
saved his life. After describing the difficult country in which the battalion
had to do their fighting and the trouble they had with snipers, who were
painted green, he says “A Turkish battery of big guns spotted us and in less
than no time they fired shell after shell. I owe my life to the fact of having
my mess-tin on my back. The bullet from the first shell hit the top of the
mess-tin, striking the side nearest my back and then turned and came out of the
bottom. If the tin had not been there that bullet would have got me in the
back”.
“I was
dressing one poor fellow who had a nasty wound in the shoulder when the Turks
started at us again and a bullet from the next shell struck me in the instep of
my right foot and stuck inside. My servant helped me back to camp – nearly
three miles – in the broiling sun. Luckily a stretcher met us half-way. The
difficulties of getting wounded back to hospital are extremely great owing to
the country and the snipers. I was sniped at the whole way back and one hit the
stretcher, but luckily did not touch me”
Lieutenant Ballance
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