WAR DIARY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 71, 1 November 1940, Page 4

WAR DIARY

O. A.

G.

CONSISTENT contributor A to The Listener since war began has been O. A. Gillespie, writing under the noms de plume of "O.A.G.", and his old soldier’s number, "23/762." He has now returned to active service as a Lieutenant on the headquarters staff of the 8th Infantry Brigade. ' He was born near Oxford, in North Canterbury, and educated at a State school with private lessons afterwards. When he was 19 years of age he went to the last war as a private in the first Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade and served for four years, rising step by step through the ranks to a commission in the field. His stripes he first gained after the Battle of the Somme. He won the Military Medal, and was twice mentioned in despatches. Back from the war, he joined the staff of the Christchurch "Sun" and went to Auckland when Sun Newspapers Ltd. began their venture there, When the Auckland "Sun" failed he continued with journalism as editor of the "Mirror" first and, later, of the "Monocle." After the outbreak of Great War II. he took charge of the war section of The Listener. He is a fluent French limguist, and a great admirer of the French. As he puts it himself, he "fiddles about with" water colours in his spare time. He also reads without ceasing-and says that he can never be grateful enough to those scholars of Cambridge with whom it was his good fortune to make contact while he was taking a specialised course there as a soldier.