PRAISE FOR PADRES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 29 April 1942, Page 1

PRAISE FOR PADRES

HELPING THE WOUNDED “A FINE SET OF MEN” (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) February 9. “That other chap is worse off —fix him up first.” This from a mail with a badly shattered arm, to a doctor in an advanced dressing station, is tj’pical of the amazing courage and spirit of New Zealanders wounded in the Libyan campaign. Their morale could not have been higher. No small credit for this, according to the wounded themselves, was due to the chaplains who had been a very real help in many ways. “Before this war,” said one wounded man, “I did not have much to do with padres. But now that I have seen the way they stuck by us and worked for us night and day, I don’t want to hear anything agaist a fine set of men, ever again. They have well earned cur respect and gratitude.” Like the doctors and the orderlies in the hospital, the chaplains, he added, worked without pause to make the wounded comfortable and to relieve their pain. Differences of creed were forgotten; all that mattered was that pain should be eased and hope and consolation brought to the suffering. According to another wounded man. seven padres were amongst those captured when an advanced dressing station sheltering more than 700 New Zea , lenders were taken by the enemy, comprising two Church of l r ; ministers, three Catholics, one iivsby-j terian and one Salvation Army. Soon I after the Germans took over the hospi-i tal, they instructed the chaplains to carry on and did not interfere with I their work. In the days that followed; the chaplains had much to do. To them fell the additional task of keeping alive the hope of the New Zea-1 landers that before long they would j be restored to the British. Fear that the wounded might be sent to Germany I . cr Italy was not allowed to take shape ' in the minds or hearts of the patients, j ■ It was not easy work. Outside were I large forces of the enemy. The stutter of their machine guns and the bursting of shells overhead was far from helpful. Inside badly wounded men were fighting their way back to » life under the hurried but competent ; care of doctors and orderlies. Religion. in the form of 1 conversation' . with the chaplains, a request and an 1 assurance given, that relatives would b.* written to, a smile and a pat on the back, was a very real consolation at such a time. Many asked for and received all the sr - ritual helps provided by their particular church. Community ' sing-songs too were led by the chap- ’ lains and prayer offered in common * for the success of the Allied cause and for a speedy release. Services were held almost daily and not limited to . Sundays. Zee a use the hospital tents; were crowded with wounded, these: services were held in the open, and it was a moving sight to see th-* walking , wounded gather in the open and it was a moving sight to see the walking wounded gather in their dirty, tattered clothes, with unshaven faces and bandaged limbs, to pray to their Creator, No little ingenuity was shown by one j chaplain who, just before the arrival 1 of the Germans, hid in the sand a! quantity of chocolate and cigarettes. To make sure of the whereabouts of comforts which later proved most welcome to the wounded men who had to live on the meagrest rations, he took a compass bearing of the spot. Yet another padre, because of his fluent command of both the German and the Italian languages, was highly successful in “wangling” from his captors small supplies of comforts which did much to cheer the New Zealanders in their sufferings.