Preface

The Samoan Committee, which, under the presidency of W. G. ("Mother") Morpeth, has been in existence since our return to civil life, in March last obtained from the Canteen Funds Board a small grant for the purpose of writing the History of the Samoan Expeditionary Force, and a modest work was put immediately in hand.

How apprehensive I was when, under pressure from the other members of the Committee, and much against my better judgment, I undertook the writing! And how dismayed when, upon delving into the records of the Historical Section at Defence Headquarters, I found the records of the Force so meagre!

But, sustained by the cheerful optimism of the Committee, the ready help of the Literary Sub-Committee (Sister Brandon and Philip Barcham) and the response from all parts of the Dominion from hundreds of ex-members and next-of-kin to my appeal for photograph and anecdote, the work proceeded.

Many contributions have been omitted from the narrative only because of lack of space, and my thanks go out to the generous donor. To all who have assisted in making the writing of the History possible, whose names are far too numerous to mention, I tender my sincere thanks. Especially am I grateful to the Literary Sub-Committee above-named for Chapter XVIII., to Major E. Puttick for maps, to Captain W. M. Bell, A.D.C., "Vailima" and A. J. Tattersall, Esq., Apia, for exhibits and photographs, to the painstaking staff in charge of Defence Records, and to the ever-helpful staff of the publishers.

Though through the effluxion of time much of interest has been lost to the chronicle, it will no doubt serve as a reminder to survivors of a good job well done, and of many gallant comrades who, later, on almost every battlefield of the Great Campaign, did what they went out prepared to do on the sunny shores of Samoa had Fate so decreed.

Happy in this belief I lay down my pen, the joy of the labour having physicked the pain of the toil.