TRIBUTE TO GALLANT OFFICER

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 29, 2 February 1917, Page 2

TRIBUTE TO GALLANT OFFICER

A 1 striking tribute to the. late .Capt. L. G-. Wilson (formerly of the Gore staff | of Wright^ Stephenson and Co.) has been received by his father, Mr. C. G. Wilson, of Wellington,' from Brigadier-General Braithwaite. "It is with much sorrow.that I sympathise with you and yours in tie loss you have sustained by the death of your, gallant son/ writes .General Braithwaite. "There are few men. in the New Zealand Division that I knew better than your ..boy. He was with me in the 'Apex' in? Gallipoli, as adjutant on the transport, and during the whole time that I commanded the 2nd Brigade from Ist March till the day he fell.

"I selected him for a special officer's course at the 2nd Army School at Wisques, and later on again for a month's attachment to the staff of the Eifle Brigade. He was a first-class regimental officer, absolutely one of the best. When we asked him to do a thing, we never had to worry or think" of it again. He overworked himself with energy. He can ill be spared. I understand that he had a presentiment that he would not come out of the Sonime Battle. He was a most devoted officer, and his men simply worshipped him. 'I feel'sure that Colonel Smith and his brother officers will have written and given you .fuller .particulars than I have.

"The pages of history do not contain a lpore glorious story than that of the 2nd- Otago Battalion during those September days on the Somraej and ..the Battle of Eancourfc L'Abbage, on Ist October, in which your son fell, was the most import-ant of all. It was, indeed, a .wonderful sight to see those New Zealand men walk over the, parapet and across 'No Man's Land' to assault the German trenches three hundred yards away. ■

. "I trust that as time goes on you may be cheered in your sorrow from tho certain knowledge of his glorious death, and that the memory of it all may, in time, be a joy to you."