SOLDIER WRITERS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 229, 27 September 1943, Page 4

SOLDIER WRITERS

ACHIEVEMENTS OP N.Z.E.F. New Zealand soldiers have told of their experiences abroad in countless letters home, but few of them have sought for their writings a more enduring form. Two who have done so are W. E. Wagener and Martyn Uren, both now in Auckland. Both, it is interesting to note, achieved publication first in Cairo, and were encouraged by the approval of their comrades to seek a wider audience in New Zealand. Corporal Wagener's "A Kiwi's Soliloquy," consists of verses written in all kinds of circumstances—at sea, in the desert, in Greece, as a (temporary) prisoner of the Germans, and Syria. They are lively, racy, unpolished verses, expressive of the varying moods of a soldier, who after experiencing the campaign which did not go well, was denied by illness the satisfaction of participating in the one that did. For those civilians who have been led to suppose that soldiers are continually in a state of cheerfulness, and happy in their hardships, this soldier' soliloquy after the shattering experience of Sidi Rezegh will be salutary. Mr. Uren's "A Kiwi's Saga" is a straighforward, chronological account of another First Echelon man's experiences in all the campaigns (except Crete, which is, neyertheless well described) up to Tripoli. This book had excellent success in Egypt, but its accounts of the fighting will be thought by some civilian readers to be overloaded with detail. For them, the most enjoyable sections may be those describing Greece, as the Division saw it first, and springtime in Syria and the Lebanon. Both publications are valuable contributions to our understanding of the Division's achievements and the quality of the men in it. "A Kiwi's Soliloquy," by Corporal W E. Wagener. "Kiwi's Saga: Memoirs of a New Zealand Artilleryman," by Martyn Uren. Collins, Auckland.