HOSPITAL SHIP SAILS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 306, 24 November 1945, Page 6

HOSPITAL SHIP SAILS

FORMER PRISONERS ABOARD. (Press Assn.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 24 Carrying more than 300 British exprisoners of war and internees, the hospital ship Maunganui left Wellington for England yesterday afternoon. Nearly all had been in urgent need of medical attention when released from captivity and had been directed through Manila to New Zealand, where they became patients at various hospitals throughout the country. “You have said so little to anyone about your own sufferings and losses in prison camp or internment and have been, on the contrary, so eager to acknowledge the kindnesses , which you have met in this country, ’ said the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom (Sir Patrick Duff) today in a message to the ex-prisoners of war and internees. He had felt rather proud of them since they had been here, he said. He warned them that although they had had many vicissitudes they must realise when they fcturned to Britain that many there had endured and dared terrible things. “If tilings there are tough we are all in the same boat together, and you and I will always think it the finest country in the world to live in.” By her demeanour and conduct in this war, notably in 1940, she gave all the world a chance to start life afresh in the only way worth while. It was the British Empire and Britain in the forefront that held the fort. It she had gone in 1940 or 1941 everything would have gone —and gone for ever and for everybody.