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Foreword

By Brigadier C. J. Duff, dso

It is a privilege and a pleasure to be asked to write a foreword to this unofficial history of the Third New Zealand Divisional Artillery.

Put together, as it was, for a specific role, it was an unusual organisation, made up of unusual people from the 'gunner' point of view. Most of you had to learn in a hurry and many had to un-learn or adapt what you had learned on older equipment or in other arms of the service, but you did it and did it well.

Our task was unusual and there were no rules to guide us, but I think we can fairly claim to have found the answers and to have done all that was required of us in some very queer situations.

I was always fully aware of the dreariness of your existence in the islands, and I must record my admiration for the efforts which all ranks made to defeat the monotony and the climate and to avoid the dread mental disease of 'troppo.' With experience of both the Middle East and the Pacific, I know that none of you need think that your service was less difficult than that of the Second Division. It was less dangerous most of the time, but it was always more arduous and more trying.

To those who have written this story and also to my own loyal and co-operative staff—both officers and men—I send my sincere thanks. To those of you who are still serving and to those who have gone back to civil life I send my best wishes and a hope that you will remember that, soldier or civilian, 'you cannot bluff the gun.'