THOSE WHO SACRIFICED MOST

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 284, 30 November 1944, Page 4

THOSE WHO SACRIFICED MOST

WITH characteristic bold imagination, and disregard of "red tape," Mr. Churchill decided that the story of Britain's war effort in the first five years should be told; and all who have read the statistical record will agree that, if only from the standpoint of doing justice to the British people, the decision was right and timely. It is especially timely because publication has occurred in the week of Mr. Churchill's birthday, and it was his indomitable leadership which furnished much of the inspiration for the sustained sacrifice and the work which the cold figures reccrd. Different people will be struck by different features of the story now disclosed, but all should be struck by one. In five years no fewer than 29,629 merchant seamen gave their lives, and 4173 others were taken, prisoner by the enemy. The magnitude of this sacrifice can be realised by recalling that New Zealand's total casualties (up to the end of last July) were 31,607, including 8065 killed. These figures of merchant seamen's casualties should net be forgotten after this war, as they were after the last. They record a cruelly high level of sacrifice, by men who knew exactly what they were risking and yet went to sea again and again until, in too many cases, they did not return. It is the simple truth that if their spirit had been otherwise their countrymen at home could not have gone on to establish the great and varied record of accomplishment of which we are now given the particulars. But praise is easy and can be cheap. In and after the last war New Zealand, through the Sheep Owners' Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund, did something tangible and fitting, in appreciation of sacrifices from which not only the United Kingdom, but all the countries which traded with her, gained material benefit. Through that fund children of British seamen were brought to the Dominion and educated and trained at Flcck House. Cannot something similar be done after this war—or is appreciation to be expressed only in words?