TRIBUTE TO NEW ZEALANDERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 October 1939, Page 12

TRIBUTE TO NEW ZEALANDERS

GREAT WAR REMINISCENCES.’ LONDON, September 13. The North London Recorder has an article by Mr. Alastair Campbell, who recaus personal remlnlscelces or tne last war. Many memories returned to him as he stood on the kerb a few days ago, watching a company of bronzed young men swinging along to the tune of “John Brown’s Body”—the old familiar air to which he had marched so often under the tall poplar trees along the muddy, twisting lanes of the Aisne and the Somme, and the watersodden duckboards of Passchendaele. Alastair Campbell recollects the New Zealanders as being a fine crowd of fellows. “Tiuey always struck m>e as being gentlemanly fighters perhaps because they did their job and never shouted the odds about it. They -went about the business with a quiet determination and always seemed so selfcontained and efficient in everything they did. “They, too, had a tough time in the East with the Ajizacs. And they acquitted themselves with remarkajile effect on the Western Front. I sliall always have a warm corner in my heart for the New Zealanders.” At one period the writer was clpsely associated with the Australian Brigade. “Tough.? Phew! They were whirlwinds.’ The Irish, it is related, were a law unto themselves. “Our interperter, a gentle little Frenchman, was transferred from our lot to the 36th Ulster Division, and I did not see him again for some weeks. When I did he was in tears. “ ‘What’s the matter, Pierre?’ I asked. “ ‘Ah, it is ze Irish!’ “ ‘Why, 1 said, ‘the Irish boys are wonderful soldiers and great fighters.’ “ ‘Fighters! yes,’ he said. ‘God only knovzs what, will happen when they ithe Germans. They have ~ war every night amongst themselves. To-iaight they chase me out of my billet. Igo mad. I want to come back to you!” “Whatever happened to Pierre, we all know what happened when the Irish boys were let loose on the Germans. It wasn't a war. It was a massacre.

“1 hear that the Irish boys from both North and South are itching to get at the Germans again. You can depend upon it, if there is a fight on, the Irish want to be in it.” “And what of the English and Welsh regiments? Their records specik for themselves. They put the wind up Jerry so often that to attempt to ©numerate even their outstanding achievements would be something like an effort to gild the lily.