"FIGHTING FIFTH"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23145, 17 September 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

"FIGHTING FIFTH"

FINE BRITISH REGIMENT The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers during tlio Great War placed no fewer than 52 battalions in the lield, a record l'or any regiment in the British Arnty. The recently published history of the Fifth, however, refers only to the two lino battalions known variously as "The Fifth Regiment of Foot," "The Old and Bold" and "The Fighting Fifth." In obtaining the services of Brigadier Sandilands to write the history, the regiment has been fortunate, for it is not his first success as an historian. He possesses just the right qualities for such a task—devotion to the regiment in which he has passed practically all his Army life and, in a singular degree, the power of clear descriptive writing enriched by broad humanity and touched by ready humour. The result is a history of the fortunes of two battalions of a lino British regiment of the line in which one's interest never Hags; and it teaches the reader, almost unconsciously, many sound lessons in tactics. Perhaps its most striking feature is the way in which it links up big events with the tasks imposed on one or other of the two battalions. To the regimental officer and man in the front line, without any knowledge of big strategical considerations, it often seemed that useless sacrifices were demanded of his unit. The historian steers a middle courso between the dry bones of tactical records of half-forgotten fights and sheer sentimentality, the twin bugbears of regimental historians. The book perforce contains many tales of desperate courage, of leadership and devotion, but they arc woven into the narrative as simple examples of duty done on occasion, and the tendency to dramatisation has been avoided. As a relief to the sombre story of fighting, of wounds and deaths of old friends and comrades, the text is lightened by occasional light-hearted episodes which are so characteristic of the British soldier, even at the most trying moments. "The Fifth in the Great War," by BriKJiilicr H. R. Sandilands. (St. Georges Press, Dover.)