"COMBINED SERVICES"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 16, 14 April 1947, Page 4

"COMBINED SERVICES"

REPLY TO TOAST BY LIEUT.-COL. T. C. WALLACE A stirring tribute to the men and women of the Combined Services by Lieut-Col. T. C. Wallace, when replying to the toast in their honour at the social evening featured the opening of troop club rooms at Te Awamutu, the speaker's eloquence making a marked impression on his audience. Below, we publish the main portions of his speech. "I feel sure," said Lt. Col. Wallace, "that the drinking of the toast to the 'Combined Services' is no more formality, and that in doing so, you do indeed pay the fullest tribute to them.

"In replying on behalf of the men and women of the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force, and of all the auxiliary services of each," proceeded the speaker, "I am sure that they would never wish a reply made to a toast to them, but that we should, pause to remember the countless thousands of men and of women, who served (and who will again, if needs be, serve) in all the varied and various services which stood behind the three fighting units. The countless thousands of men and of women who tilled the,soil of the Empire, that the Empire might be fed and clothed, the countless thousands of men and of women who stood beside the benches and the machines of the workshops and of the factory- The men who laboured in the depths of the mines, those who toiled at the pithead, the men who sweated before the blast-furn-aces and those who sat into the long hours of the night, poring over the blueprint and the draughtman's board. The countless thousands of men and of women who served in all those Services to whom no awards were made of D.C.M.'s or D.S.O.'s, of George or Victoria Crosses, but they also served, and those of the fighting services would be the first to pay a tribute to them. " 'The Navy'—the Senior Service. I feel that the men who walk the decks of Britain's ships today,, and those who have so lately stepped down from them, would never wish a reply made to a toast to them, but that we should remember their comrades of the days long since passed —those men who sailed the ships of Britain to every corner of the broad oceans of the earth and wherever they sailed carried the White Ensign with honour and covered it with glory. Men such as Sir Richard Grenville, who, outnumbered ten to one when the Spaniards had shattered his ship beneath him and dragged him on to the decks, cried—- " Like a true-born Briton, I Sir Richard Grenville die."

and he fell upon their decks and he died.

"They would have .us remember Trafalgar, Jutland, River Plate and a hundred glorious names—and remember, too, with a great reverence and a great pride, and, remembering, be very humble to think that men who could do such deeds of heroic valour were our contemporaries—men such as those who manned the little destroyer Glow-worm of 1300 tons, who, on the morning of April Bth, 1940, single-handed, alone, unaided and unassisted gave battle at point-blank range to the German battle cruiser Hipper, a vessel of over 10,000 tons. When the Hipper's 8-inch guns had almost blasted her from the water, holed her hull, torn her decks to shreds, shot away her funnels and brought down her masts, with her guns.out of action and her gun-crews dead, Glow-worm turned and with all speed her crippled engines could give, her whistles shrieking defiance, because the falling masts had fouled the whistle-lanyards, rammed her giant adversary amidships. The last words of Commander Roper of Glow-worm were to Chief Petty Officer. Townsley (one of the few survivors) as-they sat together on the destroyer's upturned keel shortly before he plunged with her to a watery grave, he said—- " 'Townsley, I fear we will never play cricket again.' 'Gentlemen, while this spirit lives in the men of the British Navy, Great Britain need never fear invasion from the crest of the waves. We of the Army owe an endless debt of gratitude to these men of the Navy, the men who lifted us from the beaches of Gallipoli and of Dunkirk, and of Narvik and of Greece and of Crete.

"I cannot reply on behalf of the Navy without replying for those stout-hearted fellows of the Mercantile Marine. The men who sailed their almost unarmed ships through submarine-infested waters and through mine-strewn seas—the, men who were the life-lines of the Empire. " 'The Army'—there is so much I could say in reply to a toast to

the Army, that tonight I am going to leave it unsaid. But can we not be proud that the British soldier of today, the British soldier who fought the War of 1914-18 and the war so recently finished, has proved himself equally as good a. fighting man as his comrades who fell in the breach of Badajos, and who stood in the squares at Waterloo, who stormed the Heights of Quebec and froze to death in the trenches of the Crimea. The British soldier who has extended and defended the British Empire through its long and glorious history. " 'The Air Force'—l am proud to rely to a toast to this most junior of the Services, this Service which has crowded a century of fighting into a few short years. These men who went roaring to the clouds to fight their battles. These men who have given into the keeping of the young men, who will be the Royal Air Force of the future, such a glorious heritage—a heritage I know they will guard as jealously as has been guarded the heritage of the Navy and of the Army—the glorious heritage of the British Empire. "I again thank you, Gentlemen, for the manner in which you received and honoured the toast to the 'Combined Services.' '"