Bob
Peters was an eighteen year old grazier when he enli8sted at Cootamundra
NSW on 29th July 1915. He arrived in Egypt with the 11th reinforcements
for the 1st Light Horse Regiment.
He was severely wounded in both legs at Romani in August 1916, when
his patrol, led by Sergeant Jock Davidson of Cowra, an Indian Army
and Gallipoli veteran, came under intense Turkish machine gun fire.
He was captured by the Turks and then began an agonising 300 mile
trip in a dreaded, swaying cacolet of the camel ambulance, north
along the coast road. They could only travel at night as the Royal
Navy patrolled the ocast and shelled all movement.
At Adina, Bob woke up one morning to find a wounded English Yeomanry
soldier, Horace Mantle, lying on the ground beside him. Later, Bob
was present when an Armenian doctor amputated Horace's fly blown
and shattered arm. The amputation was performed while Horace was
lying on the ground under a palm tree in a waddy bed. Bob stayed
with Horace nursing him back to heath as they moved back to Turkey.
A lifelong friendship was forged.
Bob's worst memory as a POW was when he was placed in the Florence
Nightingale Hospital in Constantinople. A German surgeon came through
his ward inspecting the wounded and pronounced amputations for the
two men before Bob. However, after examining Bob's poisoned legs,
he recommended treatment, and Bob believes that the massive applications
of iodine ordered by the doctor saved him.
Horace Mantle was sent back to England as part of a prisoner exchange
programme. When Turkey surrendered, Bob returned to Egypt, and then
went on to England for a great meeting with Horace's family in Kidderminster.
Throughout World War Two, Bob arranged the well-known Sydney store,
Grace Brothers, to send a food parcel to Horace each month. Bob
always said that Horace was the toughest man he had ever met. He
was forever mindful of the time when smallpox reduced him from 11
1/2 stone to 7 stone, and Horace sold his precious boots, in spite
of snow and ice, to buy nourishing food to keep Bob alive, as the
prison rations then were terribly poor.
Horace
eventually became manager of a Kidderminster carpet factory. After
World War Two, Bob tried to persuade Horace and his wife to take
a trip to Australia but they insisted they couldn't afford the passage.
In 1954, Bob and Elsie Peters decided that they would sail to England
instead, and all enjoyed a wonderful reunion there.
One of Bob's favourite war stories was about Sergeant Jock Davidson
who had been wounded at Gallipoli. When his Light Horse mates visited
him in an English hospital in Cairo, he told them, "You'll
have to get me out of here. They're giving me a hard time as the
doctors don't like Australians". Jock's mates told him not
to worry and they'd fix it up.
Next day, they arrived with horses and a wagon, four lengths of
rope and pulled up under the hospital verandah. They went upstairs
and attached a rope to each corner of Jock's bed and lowered him
over the balcony and onto the wagon. The guard at the gate threatened
to shoot, so they whipped up the horses, which galloped past the
gates in a shower of dust. They arrived safely at the Australian
hospital with bed and patient, and never a word was said.
Photos and information from son, Bob, for the
Winton Troop.
