The most lasting tribute to C. Guy Powles must be his knowledgeable and informative accounts of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles during the Desert Campaigns of World War One.
Published directly after the Great War "The New Zealanders in Sinai and Palestine" written in association with the compiler, Major A. Wilkie W.M.R., and the "History of the Canterbury Mounted Rifles1914-1919" are recognised as authoritive works on the actions and deeds of the Brigade.
Not only was Colonel Powles a competent leader and soldier he is also remembered as a photographer and the owner of his trusted steed "Bess", the only horse to leave New Zealand for the Great War in the first detachment that returned back to New Zealand at wars end. (A similar distinction is accredited to "Major" the only horse to return to New Zealand after the Boer War in South Africa). Bess was to be Guy's mount for the entire conflict in the desert. Although most Brigade horses were either sold or destroyed at wars end the Colonel took Bess on to England before returning home in 1922.

Charge of the ANZAC Mounted Division, Palestine 1917
Photo by Lieut-Colonel C. Guy Powles, G.M.G., D.S.0.
National Library NZ.

This photograph taken by Guy Powles as he and the ANZAC's charged the Turkish defended town of Rafa. This is probably the most graphic image to come out of World War One as the New Zealand Troopers ride through the clouds of desert dust towards the Turkish fortifications.
The intensity of the scene jumps across the generations - who would fall - and who would live to fight another day.

Dr Peter Powles remembers riding “Bess”.
Edited from an article published October 2005.

Dr Peter Powles, in his late 80s today, remembers clearly the excitement he felt as a five year-old when the steamer anchored at Wellington. Not only was his father, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Guy Powles back from WW1 but also on board was something equally exciting. Against all the odds, the Otaki man had returned from the bloody war front with his faithful mount “Bess”.
Many of the soldiers who had volunteered to fight in those distant shores had taken their own horses. The Masterton bred Bess, however, had a break thousands of other New Zealand horses never had and today its memory is a torchbearer to a part of New Zealand history never really told.
“With the Turks driven our of Syria the war had turned. The rifle brigade returned to bases in Egypt. The army decided they could not afford to take the horses back and decided to sell them to the wogs. The locals were known to treat their animals harshly,” said Dr Powles.
The book ‘The New Zealander's in Sinai and Palestine’ written by his father Lt. Colonel Powles in 1922 captures that special relationship between the Kiwi blokes at war and their horses, and provides an understanding of what was to happen:
“We New Zealanders are all horse lovers by our British birth right, and as Colonials we have learned to value the horse as a means of existence, and not merely as a means of recreation. Our Main Body men were horse lovers by nature, for had they not volunteered and in many cases brought their own horses? And they were now horse-lovers by conviction, the conviction born of active experience. They had learned that to no man is a horse so essential as to the mounted soldier. His horse is more than a friend, he is part of the soldiers very life.” Dr Peter Powles remembers riding “Bess” the torchbearer of a forgotten history. Waikanae resident Dr Powles recounts what happened:
“When the blokes found out, rather than contemplate the slow, cruel end awaiting their beloved horses they upped and shot them”.
The stature of Lt.Colonel Powles, and the privilege of an army general dealt a fateful hand. The lieutenant colonel knew General Sir Andrew Hamilton Russell commander of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles.

“Unlike the rank and file, the generals were allowed to take their horses back so Bess was included as part of the generals own three horses that were shipped back to Britain. There a Lady something or rather… you know…part of the landed gentry, looked after Bess while father did an officers’ course at Oxford. General Russell was sent to France and then to Germany, and father ended up riding Bess in the Victory Parade that marched through the streets of Berlin,” said Dr Powles.

Again she was shipped back to Britain. After a season, Bess, along with General Russell’s two horses, were shipped on the long trip back to New Zealand.“There was a fire on board. Photographs of the horses and their feedstock were destroyed. They were fed bread,” he said.“When she landed in Wellington we had the man who bred Bess take her back to Masterton. He entered her in show jumping where she came second. She was at Trentham for a time and then my father’s old family friend at Rangitikei took her. She was bred with a Welsh pony stallion and later had three foals to a racing stallion.”
“When my father was at Flock House at Bulls, Bess was sent to him. I was at boarding school then and every holiday I used to ride her. That’s where she died and they have a monument of her.”
“The monument to Bess is the only recognition of the contribution made by the New Zealand horse to the war effort.”