Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star "WEDNESDAY, NOV. 10th, 1920. ARMISTICE DAY.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 November 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star "WEDNESDAY, NOV. 10th, 1920. ARMISTICE DAY.

il To-morrow, . th© second anniversary of Armistice Day, is to be marked in a very special manner. As a peculiar mark of honor to the British forces on land and sea, and from every part of t the Empire, .an unknown warrior who { lias been sleeping in France or .Flanders these last few months, is to be.removed from the earth which claimed him, and reintejrred with all the pomp and circumstance that befits a nation’s great hero, in the nation’s grandest mausoleum—Westminster Abibey—where so many knights of old who fought and died for the nation’s rights and honor lie in their long last sleep. j_ As befits the occasion, the Ring as representative of the whole nation will follow the bier as the chief mourner, and all round the Empire the nation n will pay its respect to the glorious and mighty dead by pausing in its work-a-. day round and for a brief interval: castp ing the memory back to the men whose deeds and sacrifice won for us all that g was bound up in the winning of th*e war. Armistice Day of 1918, marked the close of hostilities in' the greatest " Avar thnlt history has recorded. Its magnitude and scope of operations were appalling. Th© titanic struggle called , up all the ingenuity of the leaders of the nation to successfully to the end. The British nation held on with splendid tenacity. The war Avas Avaged with varying success and there were many , dark days, hut through it all there Avifc a steadfast r " belief in the final victory, and it came as a Avell-earned ravnrd for. all the 11 sacrifice in the end. The great cere- * monial to be enacted in London to-mor-roAA r is a reminder of the magnificent response the nation made to the call for men and women to help Avin t|ie Avar The greatest initial mistake the i enemy made Avas to discount the effort *’ that Great Britain Ai’ould put forth—a mistake Avhich Avas not realised fill it was too late. The nation sprang to arms. Everywhere there was a desire to serve and our oato Dommon was no mean contributor to the forces which were necessary to Avin the day. 'The war dragged on Avith all its painful , events, hut the desire to serve was ram- ■ pant to the end and Britain remained * at great strength on land and sea and in the air, Avhen hostilities ceased. Two years have gone by since then and time has served to d’eepen the impressions ' of tho AA'ar. The outstanding fact was the service of the masses, and that conclusion marks the significance of she ceremonial in Westminster Abbey tnmorroAV. It is a sign that the nation realises moro and more the true intent and purpose of the sacrifices so willingly made. .The warrior to So laid to rest is an' unknoAvn soldiotr selected as a type of those Avho throAigh deary 1 service ipf the Avar’s drudgery and demands held on faithful to the end. Bairnsfather has made the type something of a living unit, and -everybody has pleasant times Avith those steady-go-ing fellows who could joke even with grim death—not for .mere hilarity’s sake, but to slioav the spirit of the men and their intense love of country tor which they were ready to die in their i thousands, as, alas, they did, that the I hated Hun might not overrun their country, and despoil the land as they had done where they had gained a footing in Europe. So it ig that the men of the ranks who Avere so typical in ser. ! vice also, of the naval and aerial forces { —all splendid men—are being shown I national respect in the great service ito be held Avithin the Abbey. The occasion will make that great edifice more notable than ever, and it will be the goal of a- world:. pilgrimage, 'for from every clime people will journey to see .1 the last resting place of the soldier ■ which will be the symbol of, alas, so j many hundreds of thousands of graves made by the Great Wa.r. The Avar Avas ' long and dreary, but it had its croAvn- : ing circumstance in Armistice Day, made possible only by the sacrifice of those Avho served so loyally in the fierceness of the battle front—-whether on land, or sea or In the air. The years Avere drear— the years Avere i long, I As to and fro they SAvayed; At- times of favour hopes greAv strong, At moments, too, dismayed; And then, A\-hen all seemed lost, n lull, , And once again a swing. That sent their forces at the full, With home hopes on the spring, Would victory come from out defeat O would the same old SAving repeat ? And then, "the news” came through.