WELCOMED HOME

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22476, 11 January 1943, Page 4

WELCOMED HOME

Service Overseas “Pride In Fighting Men” i N.Z.P.A.) WELLINGTON, Jan. 9. Soldiers and airmen from the recently arrived hospital ship w’ere met at the casualty clearing station by an official party of several Ministers of the Crown and members of the Legislative Council. In the absence of the Prime Minister, the Right Hon. P. Fraser, the welcome of the Government was extended by the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, who commented on the fact that among those returned were some women. “I’m afraid we have more severe casualties on this occasion than on any previous occasion," he said, but he added that wounded men were facing their present difficulties with the same cheerful spirit and courage they had shown against the enemy in Egypt. They had done a great job in sending Marshal Rommel and his legions scurrying back across the desert like scared rabbits. The Minister of Defence (the Hon. F. Jones) expressed the country’s pride in what its fighting men had done overseas. He said: “We are going to enjoy more victories this year, and we hoped 1943 would see the end of the war and the rest of the ‘boys’ back in New Zealand.” He thanked the staff of the hospital ship and expressed appreciation of the United States Marine Corps sending its band to welcome the returned New Zealanders. The Deputy Mayor (Mr Luckie), Chairman of the Harbour Board (Mr Price), President of the New Zealand Returned Services Association (the Hon. W. Perry), and Mr Kingi Tahiwl for the Maori race also extended a welcome. Miss Lewis (ship’s matron), and Colonel Gordon (senior medical officer) both spoke briefly. The ceremony concluded with cheers for the staff of the clearing station. None is more delighted to be back than a small party of hospital service workers, Sister Bairstow (New Plymouth), Privates Lake (Christchurch), Croom (Wanganui), Walsh (Blenheim) and Curtis (Dunedin), and Private Tulloch (Wellington). Sister Bairstow was at No. 2 New Zealand Base Hospital and gave most of her service at Beyrut. All look well now though they have been invalided back after varying periods of strenuour work under most trying conditions. The. men were too busy with their families to say much, but they did say that the big artillery stunts when they were getting really ready to push Marshal Rommel back were really terrific, for though the weight of the guns was not as great as those used behind the set lines in 1914-18—mostly 25-pound-ers were up forward and the heavier long-range further back—the concentration and speed of fire sent across was as much as, or more than, was ever fired on a similar length of the front in Europe. All night, when it was heaviest, the whole line blazed. A Wellington lieutenant said: “It shook Alexandria, 64 miles away from where we were. It shook us and it shook Rommel right off his feet. Guns and bombs started the drive that kept going a long, long way west. New Zealand had a very fair share in that really smashing defeat of the Germans including the crack Afrika Korps. Of all the experiences of New Zealanders overseas in this war that unbroken and paralysing gun and plane activity preliminary to chasing Rommel out of all his hopes of Alexandria and Cairo was the most terrific.”