A STRIKING feature of the war work of the Y.M.C.A. has been the promptness with which a new situation has been seized and a new opening entered. There has been an utter absence of red tape, and freedom of action has been given to all accredited representatives of the Association. The Red Triangle has always been first in the field, and has been likened to a tank in its knack of overcoming apparently insuperable obstacles. The day after the British troops first entered Bapaume a Y.M.C.A. man appeared leading a packhorse loaded up with cigarettes, biscuits, and dolly cakes, which he distributed amongst the troops. He had got a foothold for the Association, and that foothold was retained until Bapaume was evacuated. * * * * * In the British offensive in the early days of August 1918 a noted war correspondent at the Front wrote:-- 'In one part of the line three hours after the troops reached their final objective they were eating a hot breakfast as part of the programme of the day. The familiar, ever-welcome sign of the "Y.M.C.A." blossomed on a roofless French café six miles within the crumpled German line, before the tanks had finished chasing the 11th Corps staff out of Framerville and down the Peronne road. Food, and even books and papers, were set out under the Red Triangle for tired and hungry fighting men as they trooped into the rickety building to eat and be refreshed in a room carpeted with German papers.' * * * * * What thrilling memories the name of Arras will always conjure up in the minds of Y.M.C.A. workers who served in that city of ruins! One wrote home the day after a strong attack by the British on the enemy lines. He wrote the letter from a dug-out which only the day before was occupied by the Huns, in which he was carrying on for the Y.M.C.A. So precipitate was their flight that he partook of the repast served up by German cooks for German officers. At one time the rival trenches were, in places, less than ten yards apart! It was here that Sir Douglas Haig personally complimented the Association on the work its representatives were doing on the field of battle.