BATTERY REUNION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19880, 6 March 1939, Page 14

BATTERY REUNION

FIRST IN GISBORNE JUDGE PARTICIPATES MESSAGES TO COMRADES Members of ithe New Zealand Field Artillery batteries are scattered widely over the Dominion, and opportunities for reunions are fewer than in the case of infantry or mounted regiments, who by their numbers and prominence in their respective communities itend to overshadow the artillery veterans. On that account, it is something of an occasion when survivors of the same battery foregather, and a re•union of First Battery men which took place in Gisiborne last week wi'liL have some interest; for all fuse-setters and tanyard-jerkers wherever they may be nursing their war-time associatians. AM Tanks were represented at the reunion, .though it consisted of only lour First Battery men. Colonel Nonthcroft, D. 5.0., now Mr. Justice Northcroft, represented the field rank, and Lieutenant H. C. Nolan the commissioned officers urider field rank, while Sergeant Pollock, a visitor from Hawke's Bay, and Gunner A. H. Temm carried the colours of the noncommissioned officers and the plain gunners respectively. Since the First Battery was active wherever the New Zealand Division fought, and was so successful in action. as to gain the 'approbation even ' o t'-~*' i the infantrymen—traditional critics of the artillery—the group 'had many happy memories in common. Anecdotes of the years spent in Egypt, on the Peninsular, and in France and Belgium were recalled, and the personalities of many officers and men who passed through the battery were discussed from the varying angles of >the respective ranks represented. It was discovered that, in the jnanimous opinion of the gathering, First Battery officers and men were unsurpassed in the qualities which tfent to the making of good soldiers, md held undisputed the "right of the line."

Before dispersing, the veterans exchanged messages for other members of the battery in various parts of the :ountry, and especially for those who (villi take part in the major reunion to be hCM in Auckland shortly.