WORK OF Y.M.C.A. IN GREECE

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23361, 21 June 1941, Page 4

WORK OF Y.M.C.A. IN GREECE

FOUR OFFICIALS MISSING

STATEMENT BY NATIONAL

SECRETARY

"No New Zealand Young Men's Christian Association secretary has sold writing paper to military forces overseas. More than 11,000,000 sheets have been supplied in military camps abroad and in New Zealand, and not one penny has been charged,” the national secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association, Mr R. M. Brasted, stated in reply to a letter printed on. June 18 in "The Press,” when it was alleged that writing paper supplied to the troops by the Young Men’s Christian Association was paid for from battalion funds. “In England,” Mr Brasted continued, “we know that they have had to make a small charge for writing paper because of the lack of funds, but this is not surprising when we know what is happening in the business world in England to-day. To supply the whble British Army with writing paper would mean millions of sheets each day, and this cost would undoubtedly be beyond the funds of the British Young Men’s Christian Association. In reply to a statement, made in the same letter, that the officials of the Young Men’s Christian Association were not in the front line, Mr Brasted says that New Zealand was represented in Greece by seven secretaries, who, however, were not allowed by the military authorities to go to the forward area until after the evacuation had begun. One secretary, Mr J. Ledgerwood, did go forward earlier, ■ and he reported as follows: “All of our staff were waiting with rising anxiety for the word to ‘go,’ and when it came it was top late. Since meeting with the rest of the staff I have found how- disappointed and dejected they were that when they were most needed it wap not possible for them to do their job, "Regarding my own work in the front, at this time you will be aware that the 4th Brigade bore the full brunt of the enemy’s attack, and were in the end the ‘Death and Glory Boys’ of the division. Throughout the storm the Young Men’s Christian Association was'with them, and I was placed, at one time, in the position of being a combatant in the front line. It •was great going, and I don’t regret it, During the week of hostilities I was able to get chocolate, cigarettes, and matches to all the men in the trenches On the morning of the first enemy attack I was taking goods to the forward companies when the show just ‘burst open.’ From ’then on for two days I was kept constantly busy assisting the doctor with New Zealand and German wounded, digging graves, making tea or cocoa for the patients, and in a dozen other ways making myself useful. There wore three days and nights when sleep was out of the question. Shells were splitting all round us, and bombs and machine-gun fire from the German aeroplanes made our existence a veritable hell.’” The report continued, giving details of th’e work done and the help given by the Young Men’s Christian Association in the evacuation of Greece. “Other reports reaching New Zealand from Greece anfoCrete indicate that our officials of service in getting away tft«m'We|ed men during the evacuationr’qpd'.rgs, an indication of the wsy-thgy stuck, to their job, four out qt the. seven secretaries were left behind and are now reported as missing,” Mr Brasted concluded.