WAR TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 51, 11 May 1942, Page 6

WAR TOPICS

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ft,l, dental corps GOOD WORK WITH FORCES OVERSEAS Hints of the ftilventuroiis life lived in the Western Desert and other areas of the Middle East theatre of war by certain Officers of the New Zealand Dental Corps and their staffs on duty with the Expeditionary Force are contained in a recent report on dental services overseas. Portions of the report have been made available by the Minister of Defence, the Hon. F. Jones, for publication. In keeping the troops dentally fit, the dental services have effected a valuable saving in manpower. Dental units have been hard at work not only at base camps but also in forward areas. Seme of the personnel are now prisoners of war. Operators, often working in tents, they had to contend with cold winds, rain, dust and mud. Nevertheless they have completed an impressive amount of dental treatments. The report states that the Mobile Dental Unit, working under varying field conditions, lias been operating at the

:atc of 1500 fillings and 520 denture a\ :ascs per month. a The varied life of overseas den- k tal stuffs is hinted at in the follow- w ng laoonic reference in the report: i r 'A complete section from a Mobile V i Dental Unit on November 28, 1941, F b vas given a roving ccanmissicn, the 0 ] Dental Officer merely being in- e structed to locate and treat all New b Zealand troops in Trans-Jordania, p [raq, Palestine and Syria. The sec- w tion returned to Maadi Camp on rf fanuary 25 to report that all New w Zealand troops north of the Cana! a area are now dentaly fit." d If you have artificial teeth., avoid capture by the Italians.. The value c 3 f advice along these lines is indi- v sated by the following excerpts from c :he report: "The 700 men who were o released from 'the prisoner of war £ 2anip at Bardia were made fit ... t oefore they returned to their units. E The Italian hard rations had broken c the artificial dentures of practically every man wearing them.'" When the Libyan offensive began, x Dental Section moved forward .vith each of the N.Z. Field Ambulances. "During the battle, a Field Ambulance Dental Officer (Captain G. S. Lceber) was with the unit," states he treport. "His two other ranks (Sgt. C. H. Constable and Cpl. W. W. McDonald) were with the Main Dressing Station when the ambulance was captured, and volunteered to take the news tc Divisional Headquarters. They] managed to escape through the enemy lines and reached Divisional Headquarters ..." Some idea of the extent of the work done by the Dental Services can. be gathered from the returns for the second twelve months overseas. Oral examinations made totalled 67,000; fillings 33,500; extractions 5400; new cr remodelled dentures 5700; repairs to dentures 5200. Commenting on the work clone, the report states: "A most striking feature is the almost complete absence of trench mouth, a condition which is prevalent in all forces in the Middle East other than the 2nd N Z.E.F." This definitely indicates that'the 2nd N.Z.E.F. is probably in better condition dentally than other forces in the Middle East.