Headquarters: a brief outline of the activities of headquarters of the third division and the 8th and 14th Brigades during their service in the Pacific
V — Farewell
V
Farewell
It is fitting that this necessarily brief reference to Divisional Headquarters and its personnel should conclude with General Barrowclough's final order before the division ceased to exist on 20 October 1944. By that date, however, many close associations of long standing had been broken and former teams of officers, NCOs and men who had worked together for years had been scattered. Soon afterwards many of them were on their way to Italy and the Middle East to join the Second Division, there to lose their identity in the various units to which they were posted. But wherever and whenever two or three of them were gathered together, their conversation invariably turned to the adventures, exploits, discomforts and possibilities of the Third Div. Even in civilian life it always will.
The following is the last special order issued to the Third New Zealand Division by Major-General Barrowclough:—
'The greater part of 2nd NZEF IP has now been dispersed in one way or another, and 3rd NZ Div HO will cease to function as from 1700 hours on 20 October 1944. The manner of our dispersal has unfortunately prevented me from speaking personally to more than a handful of you, and I am unable to say " Goodbye," except through the medium of this special order. Even that may fail to reach many to whom I would have wished to speak.
'I want to tell you how proud I have been of the division and the whole of its base organisation. It was not my privilege to command the force from its inception, nor to have any part page 41in its initial training, and I am eternally grateful to Generals Cunningham and Mead and to all of you for the fine spirit and stern discipline which was so manifestly engendered in the early days of your existence. A commander owes everything to his troops. His own reputation depends so utterly and entirely on their behaviour in action. I very greatly acknowledge your courage and devotion to duty, and the uniformly high standards you established in the performance of every task it was my duty to call upon you to perform.
'For most of you the war is not yet over, and your services may be required in another theatre. It is a matter for regret that this further service will not be with the division nor with the units for which we have so warm a love and regard. This is as inevitable as it is regretful. I know, however, that you are qualified to take your place in any formation to which you may be posted, and that you will serve therein with credit to yourselves and to your new units. My own interest in exmembers of 3rd NZ Division and its ancillary services will never wane, and I shall regard it as my pleasing duty to further your interests in any way I can. I wish you the best of good fortune—for the rest of the war and afterwards.'