FELLING TIMBER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 268, 7 February 1941, Page 5

FELLING TIMBER

NEW ZEALANDER'S WORK

FORESTRY COMPANY

"In a verdant park in Gloucestershire, a company of New Zcalanders drawn from the timber felling trade ol' the two islands are felling and milling the mine woods," states a copy of the Gloucestershire Echo of September 14, 1940, sent by Sapper E. ,Scott of the N.Z.E.F. 11th Forestry Company to his parents, Mr and Mrs D. E. Scoit, of Karangahake. The article continues: "Trained to use the ride and the Bren gun as well as the axe and saw, all the men are fully fitted for the strenuous work ol' timber felling by of experience in the virgin pine forests of New* Zealand.

"Compared with the giant trees to which they have been used, most of them find their present work very easy, and two men will fell as many as 10 trees in a day.

"Others are engaged on the sawing of the wood into lengths and sizes in which it is required for military and civil purposes.

"'There are about 90 of the men engaged on the work, all of them volunteers who joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in January and February of last year. They are commanded by their own oft icers and are, of course, subject to normal military discipline, wearing the distinctive uniforms of the New Zealand Army.

"Much of the unskilled labour is carried out by a volunteer corps of enemy aliens who are not interned and who are anxious to help the war effort by doing work to which most of them would never have dreamed that they would be able to adapt themselves.

"They, too, wear uniforms and have their own officers, commissioned and uncommissioned. They are drawn from every profession, and represent most sections of the intelligentsia and business classes of Vienna, Prague and other central European cities, where the coming of the Nazi regime has meant the suppression of the Jews. "They are all aliens who have been passed by the police as above suspicion in their loyalty to the British cause. "At one time these kliaki-clad, sun-burned timber workers w T ere the leading men in their prolessions. One of them was the leader of a famous Viennese symphony orchestra. "Now they are leading wood and sawdust, clearing branches, driving tractors, and even learning to fell some of the smaller trees themselves. Learn Quickly. "A tall, heavily-built New Zealander who 'spoke to an Echo reporter said that although they had only been on the work for a few days, they picked up technique with extraordinary rapidity.

"AH the New Zealanders, officers, N.C.O.'s and men spoke highly of their willingness to learn.

" 'Talk about work,' one of them said, 'you can't keep them from it.'*'

"NO STOMACH NOW'* Takes MARVES ST vr,™ COMPOUND for nerves, vomiting, ncss. Fully molted " * > "' r " give immediate rel'"* v,r of tins sold in 2 "" manded by Dewar r