CHEERFUL TOMMIES
TRANSPORT TO FRANCE CONSTANT RIVER OF MEN (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Sept. 23. “Every day troop transports slip inconspicuously into a French Harbour, bringing fresh instalments of British soldiers.” Thus begins accounts by an “eyewitness” who travelled in one such ship. Packed with high-spirited men, the ship left the English shores in company with other transports and escorted by destroyers. All on board soon settled down to the inevitable pastimes of cards, sing-songs and strong sweet tea of the British Army. The voyage passed uneventfully, the escorts keeping possible submarines at bay, and this batch of transports, as with all others so far, safely entered the French harbour.
Before the destroyers turned for home to collect another batch, “eyewitness” and his fellows disembarked. Every now and then a troop train, crowded with cheering soldiers, leaves the station, but always the town is full of khaki-clad men for as last as one crowd leaves, other transports have safely docked and the broad river of men from the coast to “somewhere in France" steadily flows in and on.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GISH19390925.2.58
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Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20051, 25 September 1939, Page 7
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181CHEERFUL TOMMIES Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20051, 25 September 1939, Page 7
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