Victoria Cross for Bassett, wooden cross for his mate

Corporal Cyril Bassett was the only New Zealand soldier to gain a Victoria Cross on Gallipoli.

Winners of the Commonwealth's ultimate award for bravery under fire, the Victoria Cross, lined up in Hyde Park in London in 1956 to mark the centenary of the introduction of the award by Queen Victoria. It was the most exclusive of gatherings. Ten of the 297 bravest of the brave were New Zealanders and the commander of the parade, Lord Freyberg, was a New Zealander in all but birth. Among them was 64-year-old Cyril Bassett, a retired bank official from Auckland. Even among such a rare breed, Bassett was unique.

Bassett, who had been a corporal in the Divisional Signal Company, gained his VC for what his citation described as ''most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty'' on Chunuk Bair on August 7, 1915. He was unique because he was the only New Zealand soldier to gain a VC on Gallipoli. Of the 40 VCs awarded during the eight-month campaign, 30 went to British (including Irish) troops, nine to Australian forces and just the one to New Zealand. The lack of more recognition for New Zealanders was probably their own fault (if fault it was). As war correspondent Malcolm Ross wrote early in 1916 of Bassett's award: ''It is the first cross won by a New Zealander in this war; but the New Zealanders are not apt to talk about their brave deeds and are perhaps rather modest in describing them. As the brigadiers have said, where all have done so well and where so many deeds of heroism have been done, it is almost impossible to discriminate.''

There were also published reports that New Zealand commanders such as the two at the top, Alexander Godley and ''Guy'' Russell, were loath to recommend high bravery awards for men doing their jobs; another view was that it was unfair to single one out over another.

Bassett was surprised to learn he'd won the award and a little disappointed. Not that anyone knew at the time, or for many years afterwards, how he felt. Like many who survived the Great War, he just did not talk about it.

In 1978, five years before he died, he talked more than he ever had previously about the events that gained him the award and what followed. For a start, he reckoned the citation had the wrong date. It says August 7 but Bassett pointed out that since Chunuk Bair was not taken until August 8, the citation had to be wrong.

''My medal shows the 7th, but I think it was a mistake,'' he said.

''I didn't do much on the 7th. Everyone was under fire and that day we laid lines to all the regiments and kept them in touch. I suppose the award was for laying the [field telephone] line to Chunuk Bair and efforts by day and by night to keep it open.''

Bassett and others laid the line and in company with engineers, kept it open as best they could. At one point, Bassett was told the line was ''out'' and, suspecting it had been cut by shrapnel, decided to repair it himself. ''I followed our line all the way to a point where I could see some shelling and I happened to come across three breaks in the line. Two of them were very close together and the other was 12 to 15 feet away - I had no trouble mending the first two breaks but the other one was causing me a lot of trouble.

 

''I was out in the open and I thought to myself that if I'd got to go out there, I was going to be sniped. But it had to be done and while I was putting the last knot in this break he got on to me with his sniping. I was face down and belly down, as near as I could get to mother earth, and he gave me a hell of a fright.

''I'm not saying how many bullets he put over - I didn't count them. I edged my way back to where the ground sloped down to some good cover and rolled over into the cover - so I managed to beat him to it.''

Bassett was rejoined by one of the engineers, William Birkett, and together they went out again at dusk, staying out all night finding faults in the line and repairing them before they returned to their brigade headquarters at first light the next morning.

Later in the day, Bassett and the engineers went out again to lay a new line. Some of them were wounded and one of them, Cecil Grayton Whitaker, was paralysed from the waist down and died three days later. It was his death that prompted a comment by Bassett which was later much quoted out of context:''He was a mate of mine, a very fine fellow. Where he got a wooden cross, I got a Victoria Cross: one of the things of war.''

What Bassett did not talk about, either at the time or in 1978, was that he slung the mortally wounded Whitaker over a shoulder and carried him to safety, all the while under fire.

The day of Whitaker's death, Bassett was evacuated to the beach because of severe dysentery and neurasthenia, the latter essentially mental and physical exhaustion, and two days later he was on a hospital ship bound for England. It was while recovering in hospital in Leicester that he learnt he had won the Victoria Cross: ''No-one was more surprised than me.''

He and other Gallipoli winners were invested with the medal by King George V at Buckingham Palace on February 3, 1916, and the King apparently spoke to him of the gallantry of New Zealanders and Australians. Bassett rejoined his unit in France in June 1916 and was commissioned in September the following year. He was twice wounded in action before returning to New Zealand in December 1918.

He was given a civic reception by the Auckland City Council on Christmas Eve and, typically modest and reticent, said he considered himself lucky to have gained that which so many had earned.

''Thousands of men performed great deeds which were never seen,'' he said.

- by Ron Palensky