BRIGADIER-GENERAL BROWN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9757, 5 September 1917, Page 3

BRIGADIER-GENERAL BROWN

BURIAL WITHIN SOUND OF THE GUNS. (From Captain Malcolm Ross, Official Correspondent with the Now Zca- ' land Forces in the Field.) NORTHERN FRANCE, Juno 13. The nows of the death of BrigadierGohoral C. H.’ -J. Brown, D. 5.0., N.Z.S.C., so soon after his brigade had reached the farthest line in the Battle of Messinos to which'New Zealanders were asked to go, spread quickly throughout the division, and was received with marked expressions of deep regret. A quiet, unobtrusive man, painstaking and thoroughly, sincere and conscientious.* ho had* already won the respect and "the affection of his staff and of his men. He it was of whom I wrote in one of mv earlier, telegrams that, just after the capture of Messiucs, ho had walked all along his front line and reported everything satisfactory. This’he had done in the faco of ; heavy enemy, shelling. .He succeeded in getting ,safely back 'to his Headquarters during the day. Next day, while walking at the front in company with other officers, an enemy shrapnel shell" hurst low overhead, killing him instantly. Tt was a mournful little group of New Zealand officers that subsequently gathered for the funeral. Among those who attended wero »Qoneral Brown’s Corps and divisional commanders. Representatives of all the French and Belgian Missions also were present. The body was borne to the grave by a brigadier-general and five colonels, the band of a New Zealand regiment playing the Dead March in “Saul.” Beside the grave, bare-headed, stood the late general’s own two sons. It is not often that one could ho witness of such- a scene on the battlefields of Flanders. Here were jtheso two young New Zealanders who had come so many thousands of miles from the Antipodes, burying their own father within sound of the guns in the battle in which all three had fought. It was a simple soldier’s funeral. The two boys took a last look, and the little procession reformed and marched bock out of the cemetery. The band marched off to a lively tune. The generals and the other officers, and the two sons of tho dead warrior went back to their work, a little -■more determined, perhaps, to fight on. .