NO SINECURE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 191, 10 December 1941, Page 2

NO SINECURE

PARCELS FOR AIRMEN

DELIVERY DIFFICULTIES

The job of trying to ensure that all New Zealanders serving overseas receive parcels of comforts sent from New Zealand, especially when the men are moved frequently, is apt to produce grey hairs. This is indicated in a recent report received from Lieutenant Colonel F. Waite. commissioner for the National Patriotic Fund Board in the Middle East. Shipping difficulties are one obstacle, and Colonel Waite makes it plain, both from his own experience in the Middle Fast and that of the authorities in London, that when it comes to looking after the New Zealand airmen in the R.A'.F. the position is greatly complicated by frequent changes of address. However, Colonel Waite has written stating that he is trying to get a complete list of New Zealand officers and other ranks serving in the Air Force in the Middle East. ''It means'' he states, "a laborious examination of cards, and the only way we can get any indication is through the next-of-kin address. It the next-of-kin is domiciled in NewZealand, we assume that the airman is a New Zcalander. From now on we will get a list of new arrivals. It will not be easy to get a pareel to each of these, but we will try. Their changes of address are very frequent." A letter from London refers to a similar difficulty. "We write to the O.C. at the various R.A.F. stations, asking the number of New I Zealanders there." states the letter, j "and the reply may come 'sixteen,' so we send off a couple of eases containing eight parcels each, and by the time they have arrived ten of the lads are posted somewhere else, a further fifteen have turned up at that station, and in the meantime the first ten have got lost somewhere."' These reports show that the safe delivery of parccls is not by any means plain sailing and also explain some of the difficulties encountered in getting a parcel to all men every tiine.