WELCOME TO ACHILLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 February 1940, Page 5

WELCOME TO ACHILLES

BIG PARADE ARRANGED IN AUCKLAND MARCH THROUGH DECORATED STREETS. MINISTERS TO ATTEND RECEPTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, February 20. The biggest military parade held in New Zealand lor many years will take place in Auckland city, when about, GOOO officers and men of the New Zealand Division of the Itoyal Navy, the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, I lie Royal New Zealand Air Force, Territorials and secondary school cadets, will parade in honour of the ship’s company of the Achilles.

The streets will be decorated and employers are to be asked to grant special leave for their staffs. Queen Street will be closed to vehicular traffic for three hours during the march through the city to the Town Hall for the civic reception. About 1600 soldiers will come from Papakura to participate in the welcome, after which the captain, officers, and ship’s company will be entertained at luncheon in the Town Hall.

Several Ministers of the Crown will be in Auckland for the reception to the crew. The Government will be officially represented by the DeputyPrime Minister, Mr Fraser, and other Minister who will attend the homecoming welcome to the ship’s company are the Minister of Defence, Mr Jones, the Attorney-General, Mr Mason, and the Leader of the Legislative Council, Mr Wilson.

The first greeting to the light cruiser, fresh from her victory off Montevideo, will be from the officers and noncommissioned officers of the Third Echelon of the Expeditionary Force in camp at Narrow Neck and from the territorials on duty at the forts. They will line the North Shore cliffs and cheer the Achilles into the harbour. Units of Navy, Army and Air Force will take part in the parade, marching to the Town Hall. More than 3000 secondary school cadets in the uniforms of their respective units, and all the Auckland Territorial units, will line both sides of Queen Street from the Central Wharf to Myers Street, leaving a lane through which the detachments and units of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, the Expeditionary Force, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force will march to form a gigantic guard of honour outside the Town Hall. A detachment from the Achilles will leave the Central Wharf at 11 o clock after the parade has passed and will march up Queen Street between the ranks of territorials and cadets to the Town Hall. It will then form up facing a platform to be erected outside the Town Hall, from which addresses will be given. The parade, representing the naval, military and air forces, will be commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel N. L. Macky, M.C., officer commanding the 21st (Auckland) Battalion, 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force. WELL=BELOVED CAPTAIN PRAISED BY MEMBERS OF CREW. THE RIVER PLATE BATTLE. AUCKLAND, February 20. How Captain Parry, in command of the Achilles, said he wished he could cut up the C.B, he was awarded into pieces and give one to every member of the ship’s company is told in some of the letters received by Auckland relatives of the crew. To a man the ratings of the cruiser express unbounded admiration foi’ the skill and courage of their captain and say that to his superb control was due the escape of the ship with such little damage. “We all assembled and congratulated him upon the honour conferred on him by the King,” says one of the letters. “He said he wished he could cut it up into pieces and give all of us a bit. He said he could not have done anything if it had not been for us.”

"The captain was hit in the leg. says another letter, “but he refused to leave the bridge and it is to him and the way he handled the ship that we owe our lives. He seemed to know just where the shells would land and always got out of the way a second before they burst in our wake.” “After we had buried our dead at sea the next day,” says the same letter, “the captain gave us a lecture. It was very hard for him not to break down as he told us how proud he was of his ship and the men and the way they had behaved and fought under fire. He said he never expected the results he got and after the show we put up he was not frightened to take us up against anything. He is a marvel with his ship and there is nothing the men would not do for him. It won’t be our fault if he ever leaves this ship.”