CHRISTMAS HOMECOMING

Evening Star, Issue 25673, 22 December 1945, Page 4

CHRISTMAS HOMECOMING

DRAFT ARRIVAL WELL TIMED OTAGO SERVICEMEN’S RETURN If the arrival scenes at the railway station last evening were just a pleasant duplication of the series of welcomes to preceding contingents of returned servicemen coming home at last after the bitter experience of war, there was one outstanding difference that marked this return. The 420 soldiers, sailors, and airmen were coming back to what must have been for the majority their first Christmas spent in New Zealand for several years. The men looked fit and well' after their voyage to the Dominion in the Mooltan from England and the Middle East, and although there have been more vociferous receptions accorded other drafts the manifestations of happiness by the crowd that these fine New Zealand representatives of the three fighting services were home again were spirited enough.

It has been said that Dunedin leads the rest of the Dominion in the arrangements made for the quick departure of returning drafts from railway station to home. Certainly,, this city must have set a new record when the two trains, the first coming a few minutes before 6 o'clock (and slightly late), and the other drawing in on time at 7 o'clock, brought the Otago and Southland contingent to Dunedin. After the first greetings, many of them emotional, the men were quickly clear of the station, and it was only a matter of moments before those whose homes are here were being dispersed to their residential suburbs in the cars of the transport section of the Red Cross. One minute there was a big crowd in the vicinity of the railway station; just as quickly did the relatives and friends of the men leave the first scene of the homecoming.

The soldiers were mostly those _of the Eighth Reinforcements and married men of the Ninth Reinforcements, who joined the Second New Zealand Division when the pace was hot before Tunisia was cracked and they had taken a vital part in the strenuous Italian campaign. There were among them some who had been lucky enough to visit England, and they'were loud in their praise of the hospitality that had been showered on them there. But whatever their expressions about the leaves they had enjoyed after they had laid down their weapons for the last time, they were very glad to be back in this country and had become rather weary of waiting for the vessel to take them home. There were many anxious inquries addressed to them about the single men of the Ninth and Tenth Reinforcements —when they would be leaving either the Middle East or England. But the reply was invariably in this strain: " When they are actually on the boat ! "