THE BRITISH IN FRANCE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20919, 26 September 1939, Page 8

THE BRITISH IN FRANCE

GUNNERS CONSTANTLY ON WATCH - UNOBTRUSIVE CONCENTRATION OF TROOPS • GREAT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 1914 AND 1939 (Official Wireless) (Received Sept. 26, 3 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 25 According to “Eyewitness,” attached to the British field forces “somewhere in France,” the first British guns to be righted for an anti-aircraft purpose in France are guardians of the headquarters, not a stone’s throw from where this is being written. So far there has not been a single alarm and gunners have little to do but remain constantly on the watch. This anti-aircraft unit was among the first British troops to reach France. In a later account “Eyewitness’ reports: “To-day I visited some of the recently-arrived British troops in their present quarters. Billeted in little villages, farms and castles, the troops are living buried unobtrusively in the depths of the French countryside. So well are they distributed that you could almost drive through the whole area without noticing any unusual concentration of troops- “ Everywhere I went the men told me of the kindness of their French hosts. Equally the French pay very warm tributes to the conduct of the British troops. “The headquarters are housed in schools, former convents and other suitable buildings in sunny market towns. Officers who fought in the last war remarked on the fraternising between the French and British troops as one of the most marked differences between 1914 and 1939.”