ENTHRALLING STORY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17945, 24 November 1932, Page 7

ENTHRALLING STORY

PALESTINE CAMPAIGN PORT SAID MEMORIAL AN IMPRESSIVE CEREMONY (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) PORT SAID, Nov. 23, The Northampton Regiment, which is allied to the Forty-Third and FortyEighth Australian Battalions and also the Fifteenth Battalion North Auckland Regiment, provided the guard of honor for Mr. W. M. Hughes at the unveiling at Port Said to-day of the memorial to the Australian- Light Horse, New Zealand Mounted Rifles, Imperial Camel Corps, and other Sinai combatants. King Fuad was represented by the Grand Chamberlain. The principal officers of the British Army, the Air Force, the Egyptian Prime Minister, Sidky Pasha, and other representatives of tiie Egyptian and Palestine Governments were present. The proceedings were opened by the British High Commissioner, Sir P. L. Loraine, and by the singing of the hymn “O God Our Help in Ages Past,” after which the Bishop of Egypt offered the invocation. Mr. Hughes, after reviewing the chequered history of the monument', neither of whose sculptors lived to see it completed, paid: an eloquent tribute to those it commemorated. He said: ‘‘To all who pass along the Suez Canai, the monument must make an irresistible appeal, for it tells a story not less enthralling, romantic and wonderful than the Odyssey itself. The most sluggish imagination must be fired by the recital of the journeyings of those young warriors from -their far-off homes to this ancient land. Bred in remote countries, in an environment of perfect peace, those who had never heard a shot fired in anger came to fight in the greatest war in history. Right nobly they boro themselves.* * They proved ' themselves born fighters, facing the rigors of the stern campaign in Palestine and Syria. The buoyancy of their spirits rose triumphant, and their! belief in ultimate victory never weakened.' Theirs, indeed, was a deathless story.” After picturing the entry of the Anzacs into Jerusalem and the capture of Damascus, that city which in ancient times had defied the Crusaders, Mr. Hughes paid a tribute to the Australian Flying Corps, which the monument also commemorates, saying that Lord Allenbv’s masterly strategy, culminating in the Sunness Battle of Armageddon, owed much to the Australian airmen destroying the enemy machines, thus making reconnaissance impossible.

He concluded: “The men we commemorate to-day made and changed history. Though their Imnes are bleached by desert suns and their bodies covered by foreign soil, their spirits live and their memories will remain fragrant through the ages.” Mr Hughes then unveiled the monument, and the bishop dedicated it to the glory of God and the memory of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers, after which the Benediction was pronounced and the Last Post sounded.

Major J. N. .Stubbs- formerly of Gisborne and now Director of the Lands Department in Palestine, represented New Zealand at the ceremony, and placed a wreath on the monument.

The Anzae Memorial at Port Said wits designed by the late Charles W. Gilbert and completed by the late Sir Bertram Mackennai It consists of a group of bronze statuary 14ft. high, tho figures shown being ah Australian trooper on a rearing charger and a. New Zealander in the act of dismounting.