Fallen Soldiers

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 122, 24 October 1941, Page 4

Fallen Soldiers

E print a pathetic letter to-day from the mother of a fallen soldier. It is not very accurate, not very logical, not very fair, but it is very sincere, and we cannot doubt the assertion made in the closing sen-tence-that it expresses what many ordinary people are thinking. It is not accurate or fair to suggest that decorations go first to those who are first back at the base. Decorations are very rarely bestowed on base personnel, decorations for gallantry almost never; nor are all or nearly all of those in base depots there by choice. Further, if an officer is back at the base before his men he is a high ranking officer who went through severe fighting before promotion came to him. General Freyberg, for example, was wounded nine times between 1914 and 1918, and although there are one or two senior officers in the New Zealand Division who had not seen’ active service before the present war, that is because they are professional soldiers who were too young for active service twenty-five years ago. In all these matters therefore our correspondent, without meaning to be unjust, is most inaccurate and unfair. She is, however, entitled to express an opinion-who could be better entitled than a woman who has lost her son? -and it is certainly not true that there is no substance at all in her complaints. Men in bases have been decorated in the past, and if we except the Victoria Cross, distinctions are still made between officers and men in the grade of honour bestowed for valour-a survival of the days of privilege that can no longer be justified. And just as she is unfair, but not without excuse, in her references to decorations, our correspondent is unreasonable, but very human, in her demand for news. There can be few mothers of fallen soldiers who have not had a personal message from one of that soldier’s officers, and it is not therefore just or reasonable to ask what would be thought of a captain who was the first away from a sinking ship and "could not tell the world what happened to the crew." Army officers are not the first to withdraw from a battle, but battles are spread over miles of country and it is usually quite impossible to follow the fortunes of individual soldiers. On the other hand, the fact that so much inforniation is communicated privately to relatives means that a good deal is sooner or later known at the base, and our correspondent is right when she says that the battle story of this or that company or platoon could occasionally displace the sports chronicle of this or that football side or cricket team,