THANK YOU!

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 95, 23 April 1945, Page 4

THANK YOU!

•THEY helped in the decisive defeat of Rommel at El Alamein which started the hunt that ran through Libya, Tripoli, Tunis, Sicily, Cassino, Rome and on to Bologna, and which made Normandy, the Rhine and ultimate victory possible, these relentless and tireless fighters who returned to-day with a reputation of belonging to as tough a Division as ever faced the devilry of modern warfare. Their homecoming has been richly earned in up to five years of bomb and torpedo, shrapnel and bullet, bayonet and grenade, wound and sickness; five years during which they have almost daily cast dice with death, fighting with a skill, courage and determination which won for them a lustre as bright as that of any of the great divisions of the armies of the Empire. They have worthily upheld the fame and honour which their fathers and brothers won nearly thirty years ago on Gallipoli and in France, and there is no higher praise than that. Though they are not in at the kill, the Division which they helped to create is fighting with all the old skill and determination. They have done more than their share in smashing the grimmest tyranny brutalised minds ever conceived. They have returned for the most part sound in mind and body, to take up a way of life remote from the perils and mental and physical exhaustion which has been their common lot for so long. We who have been spared their trials and suffering thank them from the bottom of our hearts.