Tweet
WW1: KIWI PART OF 'HUSH-HUSH BRIGADE'
New Zealand Herald
Jan 21 2015
By Andrew Stone
Lower Hutt painter awarded Military Cross for bravery in counter-attack
went on to join crack British unit
Today we might call them special forces. When Robert Kenneth Nicol
joined a top secret British Army unit in 1918, it was known as the
"hush-hush brigade".
A painter by trade, the stocky Nicol, from Lower Hutt, enlisted for
service soon after war broke out.
He served in Gallipoli with the Wellington Battalion, before moving
on to France and the Western Front.
In late 1917, Second Lieutenant Nicol was awarded the Military Cross
for bravery, after he led a party against an enemy counter-attack in
a captured village. The citation, in the London Gazette, reported
that in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, Nicol accounted for "six of
the enemy himself".
Not one to blow his trumpet, the New Zealander told his parents after
the investiture by King George V that "I've been up to the Palace to
meet George, and he shook my dook".
Nicol, assigned the rank of temporary captain, had a solid reputation
as a capable officer, handy with the Lewis gun and Stokes mortar and
a skilled bomb instructor. It made him a perfect candidate, with 23
other New Zealanders, for special service with the British Army.
With volunteers from Australia, Canada and South Africa, the small band
of brothers - the War Office had in mind a secret force of 100 officers
and 200 NCOs - had a mission to block the Bolsheviks from the Caucasus.
It was a perilous and risky initiative - the NZ Rifle Brigade History
notes the men were told when they assembled that few could hope to
come through alive.
After two weeks being billeted in the Tower of London, where the
soldiers were kitted out with fur-lined coats, caps and gloves,
the unit learned the expedition would be known as Dunsterforce after
Major-General Lionel Dunsterville, an Indian Army officer. The arrival
of two Tsarist officers gave the Commonwealth force a clue to its
destination, which was confirmed as the unit set out from Waterloo
Station on January 29, 1918.
After crossing Europe as far as Italy, the soldiers boarded a ship
for the Suez Canal and round to Basra before heading up the River
Tigris to Baghdad in what was then Mesopotamia. The task set for
Dunsterforce was ambitious: to blunt Turkish and German expansion
reaching the rich Baku oil fields on the Caspian Sea.
The strategy involved the small Allied unit persuading Georgian,
Armenian and Assyrian forces to hold the line against the rampant
Turkish armies.
In early August, Nicol and a small team led by an Australian, Captain
Stanley Savige, were sent to provide rearguard protection for a column
of 50,000 fleeing Armenian and Assyrian Christians. The refugees had
already retreated hundreds of miles to escape their ruthless pursuers.
Savige recorded the terror in his diary: "Turkish troops and Kurdish
irregulars were raiding the column, murdering the people and carrying
off girls to their harems, together with whatever loot they could
lay their hands on."
Near a village called Sain Kaleh, Savige and Nicol kept up a stream
of fire from their Lewis machine guns while the demoralised refugees
streamed towards safety.
Nicol bravely kept up covering fire for the soldiers trying to save
pack animals carrying ammunition and other supplies. A Court of
Inquiry after the incident found that he was shot during this action,
and "fell to the ground motionless".
Sadly, news of his fate was not conveyed to his parents, who died
thinking their 24-year-old son was "missing in action, believed
killed".
Nicol's name is inscribed on the Commonwealth War Graves Tehran
memorial.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11389837
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
New Zealand Herald
Jan 21 2015
By Andrew Stone
Lower Hutt painter awarded Military Cross for bravery in counter-attack
went on to join crack British unit
Today we might call them special forces. When Robert Kenneth Nicol
joined a top secret British Army unit in 1918, it was known as the
"hush-hush brigade".
A painter by trade, the stocky Nicol, from Lower Hutt, enlisted for
service soon after war broke out.
He served in Gallipoli with the Wellington Battalion, before moving
on to France and the Western Front.
In late 1917, Second Lieutenant Nicol was awarded the Military Cross
for bravery, after he led a party against an enemy counter-attack in
a captured village. The citation, in the London Gazette, reported
that in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, Nicol accounted for "six of
the enemy himself".
Not one to blow his trumpet, the New Zealander told his parents after
the investiture by King George V that "I've been up to the Palace to
meet George, and he shook my dook".
Nicol, assigned the rank of temporary captain, had a solid reputation
as a capable officer, handy with the Lewis gun and Stokes mortar and
a skilled bomb instructor. It made him a perfect candidate, with 23
other New Zealanders, for special service with the British Army.
With volunteers from Australia, Canada and South Africa, the small band
of brothers - the War Office had in mind a secret force of 100 officers
and 200 NCOs - had a mission to block the Bolsheviks from the Caucasus.
It was a perilous and risky initiative - the NZ Rifle Brigade History
notes the men were told when they assembled that few could hope to
come through alive.
After two weeks being billeted in the Tower of London, where the
soldiers were kitted out with fur-lined coats, caps and gloves,
the unit learned the expedition would be known as Dunsterforce after
Major-General Lionel Dunsterville, an Indian Army officer. The arrival
of two Tsarist officers gave the Commonwealth force a clue to its
destination, which was confirmed as the unit set out from Waterloo
Station on January 29, 1918.
After crossing Europe as far as Italy, the soldiers boarded a ship
for the Suez Canal and round to Basra before heading up the River
Tigris to Baghdad in what was then Mesopotamia. The task set for
Dunsterforce was ambitious: to blunt Turkish and German expansion
reaching the rich Baku oil fields on the Caspian Sea.
The strategy involved the small Allied unit persuading Georgian,
Armenian and Assyrian forces to hold the line against the rampant
Turkish armies.
In early August, Nicol and a small team led by an Australian, Captain
Stanley Savige, were sent to provide rearguard protection for a column
of 50,000 fleeing Armenian and Assyrian Christians. The refugees had
already retreated hundreds of miles to escape their ruthless pursuers.
Savige recorded the terror in his diary: "Turkish troops and Kurdish
irregulars were raiding the column, murdering the people and carrying
off girls to their harems, together with whatever loot they could
lay their hands on."
Near a village called Sain Kaleh, Savige and Nicol kept up a stream
of fire from their Lewis machine guns while the demoralised refugees
streamed towards safety.
Nicol bravely kept up covering fire for the soldiers trying to save
pack animals carrying ammunition and other supplies. A Court of
Inquiry after the incident found that he was shot during this action,
and "fell to the ground motionless".
Sadly, news of his fate was not conveyed to his parents, who died
thinking their 24-year-old son was "missing in action, believed
killed".
Nicol's name is inscribed on the Commonwealth War Graves Tehran
memorial.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11389837
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress