“ANOTHER SPRINGTIME HAS FALLEN OUT OF ANOTHER GENERATION”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22621, 26 April 1948, Page 4

“ANOTHER SPRINGTIME HAS FALLEN OUT OF ANOTHER GENERATION”

4C? m y P cl ' s °n the old 29th ' Division greets the Anznc living; the 29th Division salutes the Anzac dead. As together we of the First and Second World Wars remember them and look back on that high adventure which in our youth we shared, let us think of the prayer of one of England’s great admiral - adventurers. Sir Francis Drake: " 'Oh Lord God, when Thou givest to Thy servants to endeavour any fereat matter, arrant us also to know that it is not the beginning but the continuing of the same until it be thoroughly finished which yieldeth the true glory.’ In these words Sir Patrick Duff, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand, struck the keynote of an impressive address delivered at yesterday's service at the district war memorial in Gisborne. "As one who, in company with others here, at the dawn of this day 33 years ago, was at the landing on Gallipoli, I am proud of the privilege of taking part with old and new companions-in-arms in this our solemn act of remembrance,” said Sir Patrick Dufif. Gallipoli Days Recalled ‘‘l can recall the first days and nights at Cape Helles and the battle swaying to and fro in that last week of April, 1915, when the issue fluttered on the razor's edge whether we of the 29th Division, and you, who, with unimaginable gallantry, were clinging on the cliff sides further north by the skin of your teeth, were, all of us, going to be pushed off again into the sea. “I can see again, at the latter end, the dusk falling in the evening of January 8, 1910, the windless, starlit, moonlit night; the fires burning on W Beach and V Beach; the gaunt wails of the old castle at Sedd-ul-Bahr

THEY CAME HOME NO MORE

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SACRIFICE

lighted up in the glow; the small arms ammunition burning with a continuous crackle on several beaches northwards; the. sudden terrific explosion as the main ammunition dumps on W Beach were fired and the whole peninsula was blotted out behind a gigantic molten, sky-high fan of flames and exploding shell. "I can feel again the wiggle of the screw as the ship at 5,30 a.m. moved slowly away and the fires grew smaller in the distance “So faded Cape Helles from view, looking like the gates of Hell, as it did when we first came there; and piles of our wagons, ordnance stores, post office, bomb factory, supplies and materials in quantities uncountable being rolled up in flame, along with all our ardent hopes. "Whether you reckon by gallantry, by odds against us, by casualties or achievements, loss or gain, those were great and memorable days; those were great and memorable scenes. A New Generation "Another war has been fought since then. The ranks of fighting men and women have been filled by a new generation, of whom we older ones are proud to say that their courage and their constancy has never been surpassed in our own or in any other age. And, as we think of how many of them too, came home no more, it is as though another springtime has fallen out of another generation. "Many and many a time I have asked myself—as I expect some of you contemporaries of mine and some of you younger men, and women, who have

similarly survived this \var, especially those who have been in hot action and against whom the wings of the Angel of Death have brushed, sometimes have asked yourselves—for wh.it purpose Divine Providence ordained that I should be left when countless better men than I were lost? “It it was in order that, as a matter of decency, I might be expected to justify my survival by constant acts ot service to God or to my fellows, I am shamed to think how little I have even begun to fill that trust. Each man we remember here today gave his body to lie for ever far away in foreign soil, and “ ‘His pure soul unto his Captain Christ, Under whose banner he had fought so long.’ “If what I am going to say does not apply to any of you, so much the better. But, as for me, in all these 33 years, and yet again since the cease fire two years or so ago in this war, there have been long periods when I have forgotten my Captain; there have been many times when I have been a malingerer to my Captain; there have been many times when I have been a deserter to mv Captain Speaking for myself, I don’t think my old companions in their graves on Gallipoli would be much impressed by my justification since then; I don’t know what my Captain, Christ, Will, in His mercy make of it. “It Is Not Enough!” “Oh fellows! Men and women, survivors of the First World War or survivors of the Second World War, combatants or non-combatants! It is all very well parading once or twice a year to pay tribute to the memory of fallen friends, unconsciously feeling

perhaps a bit self-satisfied with ourselves that we are still here. But — it is not enough! “Much more than that is looked for by our Captain; much more is needed to justify our survival even to our own selves; much more is looked for by our mute companions far in their foreign graves, if we are going to accumulate through acts of service in our lives an offering comparable to what they, each in their own generation, made. “If we had a page setting forth their gift on one side and were conscientiously day by day to write down in an opposite column how much exactly you or I have given this day our fellow-men or to our country or to our Captain, it would surely startle us with shame to see how insignificant and how infrequent our accumulated acts of service are in comparison with their accepted offering. “The ‘Last Post' has sounded for them. There are still, maybe,—you never know—quite a few more ‘Reveilles’ left for you and me. If, after this war or after the war before, we survivors have fallen behind in what these late comrades of ours would have expected, there is still perhaps a bit of time left to us in which we can catch up. “There may be some truth in saying of some of us survivors: ‘Old soldiers never die. They only fade away’. “The best thing we can do to show that we really do remember the men and women whom we commemorate today, and that we arc not parading more for our own glorification than for anything else, is to try to make our service to our God and to our neighbour in some measure, even in however little measure, —let’s say, at any rate, in a great deal greater measure than hitherto —reflect the total sacrifice which these were called unon to make.”