August 1914 - My Great Grandfather, Alexander Glass, enlisted with the Auckland Mounted Rifles along with 5 others from the town of Waiuku and embarked for training in Egypt. When plans were laid for the Turkish campaign, the Mounted Rifles left their horses behind and were redeployed as infantry and boarded a ship for the Turkish coast.
April 1915 - Along with many thousands of other brave men, they left their ships en masse in an attempt to secure the beach and surrounding hills of Gallipoli.
July 1915 - Suffers gunshot and shrapnel wounds, convalesces on a hospital ship before returning to duty, until the allied troops are evacuated from Gallipoli in December 1915.
Following the Gallipoli campaign, he rejoined his mount to fight on horseback in North Africa / Middle East where he serves under T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia), at one point writing home to simply say, "Today I rode with Lawrence".
Mid 1918 - He contracts malaria and spends the last few months of the war in hospital. Following war's end he remains in the military until his injuries from fighting and malaria necessitate a medical discharge in March 1919.
He serves in The Great War from beginning to end and returns home to restart his life. Remarkable though this part of his life was, the most amazing part of his story is that, unlike so, so many of his comrades, ALL FIVE of those young men that left Waiuku together in 1914 returned to their families.
On behalf of your daughter Dawn, your Granddaughter Gabrielle and her siblings, your Great Granddaughter Mellanie and our cousins, your Great Great Grandsons Felix and ...... Alexander and their cousins -
Thank you Alexander. Thank you to all who served.
Sincerely, your Great Grandson, Simon.
Public - Simon - Other Relative - 26 April 2015 - Military Files and Family Records