SIR TOM BRIDGES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18926, 15 February 1927, Page 8

SIR TOM BRIDGES.

DISTINGUISHED VISITOR TO N.Z. HERO OF TOY BAND INCIDENT. [THE FBESB Special Service.] AUCKLAND, February H. The Governor of South Australia, Sir G. T. M. Bridges, arrived by the Niagara to-day to spend a month in the Dominion as the guest of the Gov-ernor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson. He expects to do some angling and deep sea fishing during his Btay. Major-General Sir Tom Bridges had a distinguished and picturesque military career prior to his appointment as Governor of South Australia in 1922. Hjs name is a by-word among those who served in what might to-day be t&rmed the Old Army, and is synonymous with all that is daring and heroic in the life of a soldier. Uis earliest association with an overseas Dominion was when he commanded the sth and 6th West Australian Mounted Infantry in the Boer War. Ho was present at the reliefs of Ladysmith and Mafeking. During the Somaliland operations in 1902-04 he was severely wounded and earned the D.S.O. He was. also wounded three times during the European War, lost a leg in 1916, and was seven times mentioned in dispatches. After the retreat from Le Cateau he was given command of the 4th Hussars and was sent by Sir John French to report on the siege of.Antwerp. During the German push toward Calais he earned a brilliant reputation for resource and personal bravery. Attached to the British Military Mission to the Belgian Army, it was to his earnest pleading that the Belgians were finally induced to open the sluices of the Yser ana flood the country as a measure of defence. The best known of his military exploits has been commemorated. by Sir Henry Newbolt in his poem, "The Toy Band." The incident occurred during the retreat from Le Cateau, when General Bridges was a major in the Dragoon Guards. A party of some 250 stragglers, exhausted after their superhuman efforts, were lying helpless on the road between St. Quentin and Roupy. No effort on the part of their officers could prevail upon the wornout men to save themselves. So General Bridges was sent out to investigate. He bought a toy drum in a village shop, prevailed upon a man to plav a whistle pipe, and he himself bent the toy drum. This improvised band playing stirring military musio and popular airs of the day so put heart into the men that they made a supreme effort and staggered into Bafety. In Sir Henry Newbolt's poem, which records this incident, occur the lines: "As long as there's an Englishman to ask a tale of me. As long as I can tell the tale aright, We'll not forget the penny whistle's wheedle-deedle-dee, Ami the big Dragoon a-beating down the night." When no longer able, as the result of his wounds, to take an active part on the field of battle, General Bridges became a military member of the Earl of Balfour's mission to the United States in 1917, and head of the British War Mission to America in 1918. Later, he was head of the Military Mission to Constantinople and Smyrna 1918-1920. This is his first visit to New Zealand.