HALLOWED GROUND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 258, 29 September 1945, Page 4

HALLOWED GROUND.

The Second New Zealand Division has travelled far and earned high honours since its baptism of fire, but amid all its history no page contains a more stirring narrative than that recording its brief but glorious stand in Crete, following the crucial testing time when it was obliged to, with-

draw from Greece, in 1941. It seems a long time now since the Allied world was thrilled by the dispatches narrating the gallant but forlorn battles at Suda Bay, Maleme and elsewhere on the small island, but these events and the men who took part in them will never be forgotten while generations are taught how their fathers and forefathers raised the name of this Dominion to the topmost heights of fame in armed, conflict. It is fitting, therefore, that veterans of that campaign who are still with the Division are now returning to Crete to attend a memorial service for their fallen comrades, which is to be held at the British "War Cemetery at Suda Bay tomorrow. It is appropriate, too, that the veterans will travel on board H.M.S. Ajax, for in addition to being one of the cruisers which evacuated some of the New Zealanders from Crete, it was this vessel which, it will be recalled, played such a gallant part along with the Exeter and New Zealand's Achilles in battering and driving 1110 German pocket battleship Graf Spee from the high seas to her ignominious end in Montevideo Harbour. The thoughts of many New Zealanders turn today to that hallowed ground in Crete where the Dominion's sons lie—in graves that the people o'f Creteare proud to tend, the resting place of men whose deeds are of imperishable memory.