ONLY A SKIRMISH?

Southland Times, Issue 25652, 20 April 1945, Page 6

ONLY A SKIRMISH?

Sir,—Your correspondent, “A Better New Zealand,” thinks the 1914-18 world war was “only a skirmish compared with the present struggle.” He was evidently one of the more fortunate ones who did not know there was a war on, because they had no loved ones there, and they did not read the papers. Today everybody is aware of the fact that our country is at war, because, apart from the conscription of women and husbands and fathers, and the many shortages due to mismanagement, the radio keeps the war news ever before the people with vivid descriptions of the fighting. If “A Better New Zealand” could have heard over the air descriptions of some of the Somme battles in which the New Zealanders were engaged, and of the trench warfare, where for months our soldiers were almost up to their waists in water in the middle of winter, his views of these “skirmishes” might have been different. As everybody knows, the present conflict is really a continuation of the last one, and the only mistake the Allies made in those days was in accepting an armistice in 1918 instead of going on to Berlin and demanding unconditional surrender. They know better this time. NEW ZEALANDER.

Sir,—While I agree with the first part of a letter in Monday’s Times on the cost of living by a correspondent signing himself “A Better New Zealand,” I strongly resent the remark he made near the end of it. He said that the last war was only a skirmish compared to this one. First, there was no reason for such a statement. Second, he could not have been at that last “skirmish,” as he calls it, and I question if he took any part in this one. Men in the last war fought, suffered and died just as bravely as in the present struggle. If my memory serves me right, New Zealand in the first three years of the last war lost 13,000 dead—l3,ooo of her finest sons. Does that sound like a skirmish? And 17,000 dead were the final figures. PUKKA SOLDIER.