THE DIVISION'S LAST BATTLES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 450, 6 February 1948, Page 15

THE DIVISION'S LAST BATTLES

ROAD TO TRIESTE. By ~ Sad Cox. William Heinemann Ltd., London

(Reviewed by Major-General

H. K.

Kippenberger

HIS is a very good war book. We are fortunate that the last and not least notable campaign fought by the Division that served this country in Middle East should have been so well and understandingly described. Geoffrey Cox was one of a group of brilliant young journalists who were becoming well-known before the war. They had been in Spain or in China, had seen the Anschluss and the seizure of Czechoslovakia, and had written books and widely read articles. The curtain-raisers ended and the great tragedy opened. They continued to. watch and report events, and Geoffrey Cox wrote a book on the Finnish War and was nearly captured when the Germans entered Paris. He got to England and promptly enlisted in the 23rd Battalion, Second N.Z.E.F. The others continued throughout the war to be journalists, became famous war correspondents, and wrote profitable books. Cox was not left long in the ranks. He was commissioned and became Divisional Intelligence Officer and served in that capacity in Greece, in Crete, and in the Libya battle of 1941. Then he spent an impatient year or two on the New Zealand Legation staff in Washington and returned to his old job halfway through the Italian campaign and remained to the end. He was an extremely capable and reliable Intelligence Officer. It is satisfactory to find that he has written a book so much better than any written by war correspondents and that the sacrifice of his Fleet Street prospects was only temporary. It is not always true that the observer sees most of the game. The war correspondent’s book is very often a little off the line, often a long way from it. It seems that one must have been a soldier to write truly of war, and watching is not énough. The Second New Zealand Division @as one of the assaulting divisions, as so éften before, in the Eighth Army’s last offensive in Italy. Four long hard years had passed since the Division's first campaign, in Greece. It had survived four disasters, had shared in great triumphs and in many bitter slogging battles, and it had ‘suffered 25,000 casualties. No division in the Western armies was so experienced in battle. It might well have been battle weary, but it had the same commander, and the Same quality, and once more was the spearhead of Eighth Army. It is a fact that the Division was first fcross the Senio, first across the Santerno, the Sillaro, the Gaiana, each a river line stubbornly defended, that throughout it led the Army’s advance, thrusting on ahead of other Divisions but not failing to help them along, that in succession it defeated three German divisions, and that finally it retained enough impetus to drive through to Trieste and there showed firmness, restraint, and strength enough to deal effectively with a desperately difficult and tangled situation. This was a very fine performance, only possible to a highly battleworthy, experienced, and

well commanded formation. It is now vividly and clearly related by an officer who was in an ideal position to see what happened and how and why. HIS great story is accurately told. I have noticed only three unimportant es oe p. 42 "Fifteenth" German Army should be "Fourteenth," on p. 56 April 14 should be April 4, on p. 180 "6th Brigade" should be "9th Brigade": I shall. be glad if we can keep the Official Histories as clear of errors. The accounts of the miachinery of command and the manner in which battles are prepared and conducted are quite first class. Plenty of good descriptions of bombardments exist (and there are some impressive ones here, scenes behind the line, of stricken fields when the battle had passed, of all the outward evidences of war. But it is not often that the actual working is shown, and to me this seemed the outstanding feature in the book. The patient scholarly collection and interpretation of in-telligence-information regarding the enemy-the "Cabinet" conferences, probably peculiar in that form to the Division, the infinitely detailed planning arid calculating required of every armthe constant difficult making of decisions by commanders, these are excellently presented. The most experienced soldier will learn much from these brilliant studies. I liked the sketches of personalities. The Division was not commanded or staffed by nonentities, and these sketches of good soldiers are true to the life. And it is made clear that above these strong and _ stubborn veterans General Freyberg was always the unquestioned master. The sketch of this great soldier is the fullest and best that has yet appeared and it reveals facets of his many-sided character that will surprise some readers. His drive, as powerful as ever after four gruelling years, his personal courage and firmness appear as expected, but great caution, infinite care for detail, incredible patience, tactical skill, wisdom and even

"low cunning" were attributes not always recognised. The book would not have suffered for an even fuller portrait. EOFFREY COX thinks well of the Italian partisans and makes a good case for them. My prejudices against Italians date from earlier days, but I am unwillingly convinced that some of them, at least, must have been braver and bolder and more useful than I find it easy to believe. Still I do not see that they ._played any very important part until it was timely to come to the succour of the conqueror. The account of proceedings with the Yugoslavs in and about Trieste is authoritative, accurate, and important. It in itself is a most valuable contribution to history. But the Division was a self-sufficing body, and to me the great interest and value of this book lie in the study of that truly remarkable for-mation-its commanders, its men, and its methods. "There are few who served with the Division who will not carry its imprint on their personalities for the rest of their days..It had a life and being of its own which was shared in this war by few divisions .... We were a segment of New Zealand life transplanted overseas." « There is much more I could say and point out; probably I have missed many of the best things. It may, however, be gathered from these remarks that I think (continued on next page)

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(continued from previous page) well of this book and that is the case, but it is a pity, considering the value of the book, that it has no index. PIONEER WOMEN OF OTAGO THE OTAGO, OF OUR MOTHERS. By Eileen L. Soper... Otago Centennial Historical Publications, 1948. HEN New Zealand’s_ centennial arrived eight years ago, something like justice was done to the achievements and character of our pioneer women. There were the two volumes of experience issued by the Women’s Institutes and the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union respectively, and Helen Simpson’s Book Women in New Zealand has proved one of the. most popular of the Government’s Centennial Surveys. Now the Otago Centennial Committee is early in the field with a volume on the women of that province. Mrs. Soper has not attempted anything like a full-scale history, but in a | book of 94 pages has written a summary of women’s activities and endurances illustrated with well-chosen extracts fron? letters and diaries, The result is that we see history in a small compass but clear and in the round. Mrs. Soper wisely gives us a picture at the beginning of the kind of life these Scottish

adventurers left behind and devotes substantiaf space to the voyages, What courage it must have taken to leave the old land, however hard conditions were, and embark on a ship of a few hundred tons for a voyage right across the wld to an unknown country, where they knew they would have to build a society from the very foundations. Life on board ship, especially in the Roaring Forties, was liable to be plain hell. With one exception, no hardships after arrival-the first leaky, draughty, makeshift houses, the general primitive living conditions, the uncertainty about supplies, the loneliness-could equal the days and nights when the little community was battened down in a storm. The one exception was that the ship had a doctor, whereas the settler’s wife might not be able to get one when he was most needed, Children arrived in numbers and it might be at most inopportune times. Mrs. Soper cites two tragedies of childbirth; one is as heartrending as any colony could show. As Mrs. Soper shows in some detail, the pioneers in the John Wickliffe and the Philip Laing were not the first white people in Otago. Nor were the Canterbury Pilgrims the first in Canterbury. There were white women and their families on the shores of Otago Harbour, and others in Johnny Jones’s settlement at Waikouaiti. The farm there supplied the newcomers with fresh food. The Otago women did a fine job in a new land. Like their husbands they built better than’ they knew. This in the most literal as well as the figurative sense, for Mrs. Soper makes the interesting side-point that the wattle-and-daub houses were more pleasing to look at than many built later of more pretentious material. Innate good taste ‘may have been a factor, but simplicity of style was forced on the pioneers by ‘paucity of material. The vulgarity of design which has been so common in our domestic architecture came with prosperity and the spread of poor urban taste. It is one of the several good features in this book that Mrs, Soper does not exclude the seamy side of life. There were such things as drunkenness and deserting husbands, and the’ employment of dancing girls to encourage. men to drink; there was even the sale of a wife. One suspects there were more complaints than Mrs. Soper suggests. But one does get a picture of general adaptability and cheerfulness. Mrs. Soper presents a community that in the main made the best of things, and was happy in creating its own amusements out of simple elements. We should like to know one thing. When the pioneers emigrated, it was the custom in going to church for the women to walk a little way behind their husbands, a sign that the man was very definitely master of the household. How long did this custom last in Otago? The question is all the more pertinent because Mrs. Soper has. something to say about Otago’s very good record in the provision of higher education for women, and in crusading for better industrial conditions for | women workers. The Otago Girls’ High School was the first of the kind in New Zealand, and Otago University, which ante-dated the University of New Zealand, admitted women without question when it was asked to do so. On one matter Mrs. Soper may be corrected,

She describes the Otago Women’s Club, founded in 1914, as "the first of such provincial clubs in New Zealand." The Pioneer Club in Wellington was founded in 1909, and the Canterbury Women’s Club in Christchurch in 1912. The illustrations in this well-printed book will be a delight to all interested in the old days. The pictures of women’s dress and of household implements are important social documents, and the photograph of wagon-teams en reute to the goldfields in 1862 is worth a chapter of written description.

A.

M.