Trench cyclist'

'A former engineer officer who has just died became well known in the field engineers in France for his practice of riding a bicycle on the duckboards of communication trenches. He was Mr Acland Withiel Thomas, eldest son of the late Professor Sir A. P. W. Thomas, K.C.M.G., of Auckland University.

He rode his bicycle, by the way, to save a leg damaged when he was hit on Gallipoli. In the Gallipoli episode he was recommended for the D.C.M., but was awarded an "immediate" M.C. in France.

On the last occasion, at Greveour on the Canal de L'Escaut, he was responsible for repairing a bridge. So heavy was the fire that Thomas, then a Lieutenant, ordered his men to retire and carried on himself. As it was thought that he could not possibly survive, the M.C. award was made straight away. His successful work then is mentioned in Colonel S. S. Allen's "Second Auckland."

It was tough luck for him that on the last day the division was in action (in November 1918) he suffered a wound that led to the loss of his damaged leg.

He was drawing charges from mined bridges beyond Le Quesnoy when some cavalry drew shell fire, and a fragment lodged in his left knee. This was missed in an X-ray examination, and the wound became gangrenous and the leg was amputated in 1919.

One of his biggest regrets was that the division did not act on his report that a pillbox at Bellevue (from which he extracted two bottles of liqueur) was unprotected by wire and could be occupied.

From this pillbox the Germans later inflicted hundred of casualties and held up the Passchendaele advance by the New Zealanders.'

Obituary in the Auckland Star, December 1962

Attended Auckland Grammar School.

Attended Auckland University College (now the University of Auckland). AWMM