TO EIGHTH ARMY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3297, 6 August 1943, Page 5

TO EIGHTH ARMY

COMMANDER’S MESSAGE COPY RECEIVED IN PAEROA MAJOR DISASTER FOR ENEMY A printed copy of the following personal message sent in Tunisia on May 14, by General B. L. Montgomery to all officers and other ranks of the Eighth Army has been received by Mrs M. E. Conolly, Hill street, Paeroa, from her son, Lieut.-Colonel J. Conolly, who is with the Eighth Army in North Africa. The message read as follows: — EIGHTH ARMY. Personal Message from the Army Commander. 1. Now that the campaign in Africa is finished I want to tell you all, my soldiers, how intensely proud I am of what you have done. 2. Before we .began the Battle of Egypt last October I said that together, you and I, would hit Rommel and his Army “fox six” right out of North Africa. And it has now been done. All those well-known enemy Divisions that we have fought and driven before us over hundreds of miles of African soil from Alemein to Tunis, have now surrendered.

There was no Dunkirk on the beaches of Tunisia; the Royal Navy and the R.A.F. saw to it that the enemy should not get away, and so they were all forced to surrender. The campaign has ended in a major disaster for the enemy. 3. Your contribution '■ to the complete and final removal of the enemy from Africa has been beyond all praise.

As our Prime Minister said at Tripoli in February last, it will be a great honour to be able to say in years to

come: — “I marched and fought with the Eighth Army.” 4. And what of the future? Many of us’ are probably thinking of our families in the home country and wondering when we shall be able to see them. But I would say to you that we can have to-day only one thought and that is to see this thing through to the end; and then we will be able to return to our families, honourable men. 5. Therefore let us think of the future in this way. And whatever it might bring to us, I wish each of you the very best of luck, and good hunting in the battles that are yet to come and which we will fight together. 6. Together you and I, we will see this / thing through the end. B. L. Montgomery, General, Eighth Army. Tunisia, May 14, 1943.