GERMAN GUNS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 July 1919, Page 3

GERMAN GUNS.

ARRIVE IN AUCKLAND. WELLINGTON, July 2. Sixty field guns and heavy guns captured fx’om the Gei’mans on the Western Front by the New Zealand Division are aboard the Waimana, which has arrived in Auckland. These guns axe to be distributed to the regimental headquarters thxeughout New Zealand, hut they axe to be exhibited first in Wellington. The Minister ot Defence asked the Mayor if a display could he arranged, and the Mayor has suggested in reply that the guns should be placed temporarily in front of the Town lla.ll, on either side of the portico. The Defence Department will move the guns to the position alter the arrival of the Waimana. The distribution of these captured guns is a matter of some difficulty. Regiments naturally have a special interest in the guna that they captured themselves, and they wish these trophies to go to their regimental headquarters. Some of the guns have histories attached to them, hut othex-s have piesented some difficulty in the mater of identification. The senior officers of the Division will assist ‘in securing a fair distribution.

The captured guns have no value except as trophies . They are of many ages and patterns, but even the most modem of them have ceased to have military value, since they would require ammunition of the German calibres and fittings and accessories not used in the New Zealand Army. It is intended eventually to attach to many of these guns plates giving in brief the circumstances of their capture, and the names of the units that took them.