Evening star., 1939-10-29
War Correspondent
Taken Back 20 Years
By Scenes in France
Young British Officers
Have Taken Tradition
Of Fathers, He Finds
b. SIR PHILIP GIBBS,
British War CORRESPONDENT.

BRUSH war Correspondent.
WITH BRITISH FORCES. Oct.
28-The weather has turned sharp
ly cold and our men have to stand
up against a bitter wind which
comes a-whistling through the
cracks in the old barns where they
are billeted. To me coming back
to France and war conditions, after
that old war to end war, every
thing l see is acutely reminiscent
of those winters in Flanders, when
that ghost army of the past was
on the Somme and up by Ypres.
Yesterday the snow began to fall
and suddenly whitened roofs of the
farmsteadS and barns around the
aerodrome where 1 was waiting for
one of our planes to start. The
young pilot came in to warm him.
self at a small estaminet where
we could get hot coffee. The room
was foggy with the warmth from
the stove and the smoke of many
cigarettes. There was a group of
young airmen with one or two
French soldiers and behind the
bar the madam told me at some
length what had happened to her
in the last war when her family
had been behind the German lines.
Taken Back 20 Years.
Somehow l felt in a dream. This
little scene took me back 20 years
or more, when in such places used
to try to get little warmth after
being frozen to the bone in the
cold winds of Flanders. Presently
the pilot went out, looked up at
the sky and did not like the looks
of things. He was supposed to be
taking my son to England, and
hoping to get there, but an hour
later he was back again with his
passenger because of that snow N
the sky. This morning it cleared,
but a north wind blew hard when
l went up to headquarters of the
guard battalions and walked with
their Colonel along a muddy track
to see his pillboXes and defensive
line.
Once again I had sense of hav-
ing slipped back through the years,
Surely it was only the day before
yesterday that this colonel was
young lieutenant in the guards
down from the Somme who had
lain nexv to me in the military
hospital at Amiens when the Ger
man hombers used to come at night
to disturb our rest. We had long
talks from our beds about the war
and they used to scandalize a gen.
eral also in the ward by our criti-
cism of the high command. Now
he is the senior officer with grave
responsibilities on his own shoulders
in another war neither of us imag-
ined would ever happen. He talked
to me about his men. Thirty per
cent Of the men are reservists and
he finds them fine fellows, very easy
to handle because of their self
discipline and experience of life.
They are a grand influence among
the younger men who are also keen.
No Clue to the Riddle.
In the officers mess I sat with
the same types I had known in that.
other war, which for most of them.
is far back in history. There was
the usual humorist and the usual
chaff around the table. They oues-
toned me as a new arrival from the
outside world about the meaning
and mystery of this war. but I could
give them no clue to this riddle.
But one thing I learned in the short
time l have been out here. What
ever happens the spirit of officers
and men has not changed. though
another generation has arrived since
my last war when in trench coat
! trudged through French mud with
British soldiers.
The young officers of today have
taken over the tradition in the man.
ner of their fathers. The men who
do less foot-slogging and travel
along the roads in army lorrles.
huddled against the rain and sleet
with the same cheeriness as their
predecessors who made a Joke of
Flanders mud and roared a good old
chorus to keep themselves warm.
But there is difference A world
OF difference, though it may not
last. There is no hell fire corner.
The chorus is not interrupted by
high explosive fire. or a Joke is not
made sharper by the whiz of high
velocities. All is yet to come if it
comes
(copyrisht, 1899, McNaught syndicate.)