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William Meldrum reminisces about his law career, his role as a commanding officer at Gallipoli during World War I, and his post-war career as a magistrate in Greymouth. The recording was made at his Greymouth home on his 92nd birthday.
An unidentified male announcer introduces William Meldrum and gives a background to his early life and education.
Meldrum begins by talking about his sporting ambitions and accomplishments, education and law training in Auckland. He practiced law in Hunterville around the time of the Boer War and founded a local regiment, the Hunterville Mounted Rifle Squadron. He was Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the 6th Regiment, headquartered in Palmerston North, when World War I broke out in 1914.
He was appointed commander of the Wellington Mounted Rifles and the 6th Mounted contributed a squadron, with two others from Hawkes Bay and Taranaki. After five months training in Egypt they went as infantry to Gallipoli after the April 25th landings. He landed on the 12th of May with 477 men.
The 477 men dwindled to twenty-three eventually. After a rest period on Lemnos they returned to Gallipoli where they were required to clear no-man's land with many night patrols and keep the Turks in their trenches.
Meldrum: I always thought that clearing no-man's land and keeping Turks back in their trenches was one reason why, when the decision was taken to withdraw from Gallipoli, that the British troops were able to get back over the couple of nights it took to do it, without losing a man. The Turks were sticking to their trenches. If they had appeared in no-man's land we simply used the bayonet on them, and cleared no-man's land of Turks. For a month at least before the retirement, there wasn't a Turk to be found in no-man's land in night-time. That I always thought, was one of the reasons why the retirement, a wonderfully arranged thing, succeeded without loss.
So we came back to Egypt and changes took place. The infantry was sent to France and the Mounted men were retained to serve in the Sinai Desert. Chaytor was appointed to the brigade. I went back to my old regiment and we went back to the front and took up patrol work for a couple of months at Romani. After a couple of months our brigade was ordered back to the canal in order to rest the horses and get them fed on green food because the sand was getting into their stomachs and they wanted purging badly.
Announcer: The Turks were driven back into the Holy Land and Gaza and Beersheeba were captured. the next objective was Jaffa and eventually this was entered.
Meldrum: It was a private headquarters. I heard afterwards that General Allenby had told General Chauvel who was in command of that portion of the line, that he didn't want Jaffa entered until the British forces had moved off up onto the right, in line with it. Chauvel's reply was 'Well I'm afraid you're too late sir. New Zealanders entered Jaffa today," which was the fact. We entered Jaffa and occupied it. The Turks retired beyond the Auju River two miles north of Jaffa.
Announcer: The Anzac Division's next job was to clean up the Jordan Valley and Meldrum was allowed to take the lead. He was given New Zealand mounted Rifle Brigades, two battalions of West Indian troops and a battery of artillery. Many Turkish and German prisoners were taken and the job culminated in a Turkish surrender. This meant that the New Zealand Mounted men's share of fighting in the Middle East was virtually over and they were moved to Egypt. There they occupied the Delta and had a comparatively quiet time of it for three month's before setting sail for New Zealand."
The interview continues with recollections of Meldrum's life back in New Zealand where he became a magistrate in Greymouth. He talks about his belief in leniency with first offenders, West Coast after-hours drinking culture and Māori fishing and birding cases where the Treaty of Waitangi was invoked as a defence.