SIR ANDREW RUSSELL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23338, 5 May 1939, Page 13

SIR ANDREW RUSSELL

Sir, —The presence in our city of General Russell gives us the opportunity to pay tribute to this man, who did more than anyone else to establish the military reputation of New Zealand in the world's great field of honour. The morale of any formation in the field, and indeed of any institution in civil life, depends on the man at the head. The severe blow dealt by the New Zealand Division in the first Somme battle, when at Delrille Road it drove the apparently firmly entrenched enemy off the crest of the long and blood-drenched slope, up which the British Army had struggled for months, was a tribute to his personal leadership and to the New Zealand soldier. His commanding personality was outstanding in the dark days of the German onslaught at the second Somme, when in the crumbling gap the division formed a solid rock in a swirling stream. Subsequently in the same battlefield, as inav be seen in the history, it gave the first blow that started the enemy on the war back I to Germany, when it drove liim off the , shoulder of a plateau, and, following" | up. tore a gap in the Hindenburg Line. Yet Auckland has not seen fit to locally honour Sir Andrew's name. His well-merited reputation in the British Army seemed to be attenuated in New Zealand by the Dominion's distance from the battlefields. The appreciation of England is shown by the wholehearted welcome enjoyed by risitors from the Dominion. In changing the names of streets no one seemed to think of the battle honours, even in the second Somme, gained by the City of Auckland Company, and by the Auckland Battalion when it formed the spearpoint of the short range and cold steel combat of which the severe casualties' wero the measure of the cost of bringing the enemy -to a halt. This allowed the division to come tin and form a line which was nerer passed. The appreciation of the public could be shown by the demand for universal training. It would demonstrate sincere appreciation for the sacrifices made for them, and not the easy plaudits which cost and mean nothing. A surface smile may pay the toil That follows still the conquering right, With soft white hands to dress the spoil That sun-browned valour clutched in fight. AkaAaka.