TRIBUTE PAID

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22197, 6 December 1946, Page 3

TRIBUTE PAID

DOMINION AIRMEN

SIR A. LONGMORE’S VISIT

OVERSEAS LEAGUE WORK (P.A.) AUCKLAND. Dec. G.

'The British nation owes a great debt to New Zealand for the excellence of the young men who served with the Royal Air P'orce as individuals and in complete squadrons. They were always regarded as first-class,” said Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Murray Longmore, G.C.8., D. 5.0.. who arrived in Auckland on the flying-boat Aotearoa.

Air Chief Marshal Longmore has been a council member of the Overseas League since his retirement from the Royal Air Force in 1942. Because of Iris efforts on New Zealand's behalf as a member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Pacific Defence Conference in 1939. lie will be the guest of the Government during his stay in the Dominion, which will last until December 21. He will visit branches of the Overseas League in the four main

centres and will make every endeavour to arouse interest in the organisation. Air Chief Marshal Longmore said the league had over 50,000 members throughout the Empire, but there was need for many more, particularly among the young people. Its object was to foster goodwill between the countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations and to secure knowledge of activities in other parts of the Empire. A commissioner of the Imperial War Graves Commission, Sir Arthur said he had visited the graves of New Zealand servicemen buried in England and had found them all well tended. One of his tasks while in New Zealand would be to confer with the Anzac agency of the Imperial War Graves Commission. On his way back to England he would visit war graves in New Britain, New Guinea, Borneo, Malay, Siam and Burma, arriving in Delhi in February.

Sir Arthur stated that the Overseas League in .the United Kingdom would direct and assist parents or widows of New Zealand servicemen who were buried there if they wished to visit the graves.