MEMORIES OF GREAT WAR

Southland Times, Issue 25358, 9 May 1944, Page 5

MEMORIES OF GREAT WAR

N.Z. Officers Meet At Noumea

(N.Z.E.F. Official News Service)

PACIFIC HEADQUARTERS, May 4. Brigadier A. E. Conway, AdjutantGeneral New Zealand Army Forces is on a tour of inspection of the Pacific Area, where New Zealand forces are stationed. He was accompanied by Colonel E. R. McKillop, Deputy-Com-missioner of Defence Construction.

Thirty years ago, when a force of New Zealanders landed at Noumea on their way to wrest Samoa from the Germans, there was a small group of soldiers of not very significant rank — one was a coptain, two were privates and the fourth was a signalman. The captain is now Lieutenant-General E. Puttick, Chief of Staff of the New Zealand Forces, who has already been to New Caledonia in this war and has met one of the privates and the signaller. This last weekend, however, saw another of the privates, now Colonel McKillop meet the signaller, Brigadier W. E. Dove, who is now Officer-in-Charge of Administration, 2nd N.Z.E.F. The other private, who has still to keep his rendezvous here, is now Air . Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham. Colonel McKillop has the distinction of being the first New Zealand soldier to enter the Pacific zone in this war. He was formerly in charge of defence construction work in Fiji. He is accompanying Brigadier Conway, who three years ago last week end was in Singapore attending the last Pacific war conference before that stronghold fell to the Japanese.