RAILWAY OPERATING GROUP

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24987, 23 September 1946, Page 6

RAILWAY OPERATING GROUP

REUNION OF SOUTH ISLAND MEMBERS The Railway Operating Group, New Zealand Engineers, had been described as the best unit of its kind in the British Army, said Mr A. H. Sage, 0.8. E., at a reunion on Saturday evening of South Island members of the group. Mr Sage, who was formerly the unit’s commanding officer, said that the opinion he had quoted had been expressed by the major-general in charge of transport at the War Office. About 100 men attended the reunion, which was held in the Railway Social Hall, Carlyle street. In tracing the history of the unit, Mr A. H. Hayles, Railway Rehabilitation Officer, said that at 9.30 a.m. on June 14, 1940, the United Kingdom made an urgent appeal to the New Zealand Government to form a railway operating group. In the afternoon of that day an appeal was broadcast and the various railway sections asked for volunteers. Before the end of the day more than two-thirds of the personnel required had been found. The group had assisted in operating the strategic line between Bel Hamed and Mersa Matruh, a line used extensively for the transport of equipment and stores for General Wavell’s Army in its campaign against the Italians. Forty .members of the group were in Tobruk during the historic siege, Mr Hayles said. When the history of the war came to be written he felt sure that the part played by the group would receive a just measure of appreciation. Items were given by the Addington Workshops Burlesque Band, and Messrs Len Cummins and Jock Lockhart

The toast list was as follows: —“The Railway Operating Group” (Mr A. H. Hayles—Messrs A. H. Sage. R. O. Brebner. and B. Lucy); “Fallen Comrades” (Mr G. J. King); “The Railway Department” (Mr R. Rinaldi—Mr O. J. Doidge): “The Rehabilitation Department” (Mr J. Morgan—Mr Hayles); “The Artists” (Mr H. Bevar —Mr Len Cummins}.