VERY GRATEFUL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1943, Page 4

VERY GRATEFUL

NEW ZEALAND PRAISED TREATMENT OF AMERICAN SERVICE MEN MRS ROOSEVELT’S OBSERVATIONS (By Telegraph—Press Associatio:i -Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 13. The people of the United States have reason to be “very grateful” for the way members 'of American armed forces have been treated in New Zealand, Mrs Roosevelt told 4,000 members and guests of the National Geographic Society last night. “Everyone of us here,” she told a capacity audience at Constitution Hall, “must be very grateful indeed to the people of Now Zealand, old and young alike, who have been so hospitable to our troops.” The First Lady, who was described by Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor, president of the Society, in his introduction, as “the world’s most versatile geographer,” also had a good word for the behaviour of American boys. “We can be very proud,” she said, “of the way our boys have behaved in New Zealand and Australia. They have been good ambassadors.”

Mrs Roosevelt seemed particularly impressed with the fact that New Zealanders had taken American soldiers and marines into their homes for weeks at a time and said they later voiced disappointment that the boys had gone on from Guadalcanal to Australia instead of being sent back to their New Zealand bases. It was apparent that Mrs Roosevelt considered her visit to Rotorua the highlight of her trip and she told in detail of her meeting with Rangi, her Maori guide, at the entrance. She described Maoris as “kind and gentle people • • ■ possessing the very essence of good manners.” Although intensely interested in the thermal region, she expressed regret she had been unable to visit the South Island also “to see its glaciers and mountains like the Alps.” “New Zealand,” she exclaimed, “is one of the most charming countries I have ever seen.”

Reminding her audience that her trip across the Pacific was not just for sightseeing, Mrs Roosevelt told of visiting an almost endless succession of American camps and hospitals, carrying everywhere on behalf of her Presidenthusband a message of faith and good cheer to fighting men of the United Nations. “My trip was certainly not for pleasure,” she said. “In one afternoon I visited 52 hospital wards.” One of the hardest lessons for American boys to learn was not to trust a Japanese. She told how a chaplain, carrying a wounded Japanese to shelter over his shoulder, was stabbed in the back.

Government care such as was given in the -Army was not necessarily spoiling America’s young men, she said, for on every hand she saw evidence of their improvement in resourcefulness. Possibly as much as anything else, she concluded, the war had demonstrated the great value and importance of early training in outdoor living.