WAR MEMORIES BY RADIO

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1928, Page 1

WAR MEMORIES BY RADIO

ADDRESS by gunner a. g JENKINS.

CHRISTCHURCH, Fob. 8.

Christchurch's popular broadcasting station 3ZC. last evening presented a military programme, “Reminiscences of the Great War,’’ a feature of the programme being an address by Gunner A. G. Jenkins, the man who fired the first shot for the British in the Great War, and who is in Christchurch at present in connection with the filming of the official war picture “Alons,” at the Grand Theatre next week. *

The programme included the fantasias. “Arrival of the Britsli Troops in France,” “Wembley Military Tatoo,” “Battle of Waterloo,’’ “1812”; overture, “Colonel Bogey,” “Old Comardcs,” “Pomp and Circumstance.” Gunner Jenkins gave an interesting description of., tlic now immortal retreat. describing the. various armies which had joined issue oil the Western Front, and outlining the. various movements which led 10 the halting of the enemy’s advance. “Looking hack.” he said, “we see wliai a miracle it was that the British troops under Sir John .French escaped destruction. They were saved by their supremo valour and discipline. and h.v the blunders—no! one. nor Luo, nor three—of General von KI tick and the German High Command, which, even as late as Angus! 21st.. reported to von Kluck that, according to its belief, no disembarkation of British troops on a big scale had taken place.” After describing the effect of the firsL reverses which the Allied armies experienced, the speaker stated the military historians had long since reduced the Baffle of Alons to its strict proportions. But in the minds of those who remembered it as sharply as though it were yesterday, it could never he so reduced. “Wo prefer the illusion, because what is nut illusion but fact, what is not legend hut simple truth, not embroidered fable, hut plain chronicle, is that at Alons and at their first encounter 70,000 men of the British Regular Army upheld the old tradition. look grim toll of their enemies, and having fought through a hot August- day. rose and marched, not knowing why, upon their tracks, and fought and marched again till they were well nigh dead with fatigue. Alons w-iis the first line to bo written in the great British epic of the war. which thus o|K*ucd grandly, as an epic should.”