H.G. ACTIVITIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 57, 25 May 1942, Page 5

H.G. ACTIVITIES

WORK OF MEDICAL CORPS TRAINING OiF SIGNALLERS In his address last evening at the Awake New Zealand Social the Commander of the Medical section, Mr E. Ttamson, stated as under:— On behalf of the Medical Corps of the Home Guard I wish to thank the Awake New Zealand Committee for their response to our appeal for assistance. The allocation made by them has enabled us to carry out some plans we have long contemplated. We as a unit were getting to a stage where without more equipment we could not do much new training which is neccssary for our efficiency should our services in the field b"6 - required. It' was with this in view that we asked for financial assistance to build a trailer unit for our M.D.S.

and also to convert a truck into a fouivstretcher ambulance. Work has been started on the trailer unit and it is well on the way and we hope to have it usable early next month. Work will then start on the other vehicle. For the Signal Platoon, Mr N. Matthews stated: — The signallers have a very important task to perform as we are required to provide and maintain communication between the different units of our battalion. These

duties must be carried out quickly and accurately, as we all know that time must not be lost in transmitting and delivering messages. In fact, our job can be likened to that of the telegraph office which handles civilian traffic in an efficient manner . We are using several methods of communication; flags, semaphone and morse, limited to daylight: lamps, which are used in daylight as well as at night, and telephones, which provide a very efficient and more secret means of passing messages. Most of the equipment in use has been provided by our signallers, and nearly ail of it lias proved very good in practice. I might mention that a good signaller is a specialist. He has to be a soldier first, and has then to learn the signalling side of the buviess as lie never knows when he may be called upon to take offensive action in protecting lines of conimunica tio-n. As signal instruction is of a technical nature, I am g'ad to state tha; the majority of th; Guardsmen gnailers are measu-i' g up to sl.an ard, and given t'. c essentia', equ ] ment will make ;i:: L class signal . ;