WITH UNRRA AT MINSK

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24900, 13 June 1946, Page 4

WITH UNRRA AT MINSK

MR R. R. LIVINGSTONE A SENIOR MEMBER HIGH TRIBUTES PAID The only Briton in the Byelorussia missidh of 60, handling 34,000,000 dollars worth ’of UNRRA supplies to Russia, Mr R. R. Livingstone, 0.8. E., the elder son of Mr and Mrs H. G. Livingstone, of Riccarton, is chief of the finance and administrative bureau at Minsk. He flew last Friday, via Berlin and Moscow, to take up his UNRRA Appointment Although the mission itself is a comparatively small one, it is regarded as having an extremely important job in distributing the supplies, and Mr Livingstone is one of the senior members. He expects to be in Russia for several months. The arrival at Minsk of an UNRRA shipment of electricpower plants from Britain, tinned meats from Canada, and clover seed from Czechoslovakia was reported on Tuesday, the message saying an additional 20,000 tons of goods was on the way. This is the third important position with UNRRA to which Mr Livingstone has been appointed/ He left New Zealand with the First Echelon as a lieutenant and signals officer of the Divisional Cavalry Regiment. He served in Greece, Syria, Libya, North Africa, and Italy, and attended the staff college at Haifa. After serving as Assistant-Quartermaster-General of the 10th Corps, Bth Army, in Egypt and Italy, he was selected for the UNRRA Balkan Mission, responsible for relief and rehabilitation activities in Greece, Yugoslavia and Albania, the request to the Prime Minister for his release from the N.Z.E.F. by the Chief of the Balkan Mission stating that the mission believed that Lieutenant-Colonel Livingstone “would make an unusual contribution to UNRRA.”

After working in the Balkans, Mr Livingstone was appointed chief of finance and administration at UNRRA’s Middle East Office in Cairo, the chief of which wrote: “Anyone who knows the history. t of UNRRA in Cairo knows that you have worked a miracle in developing in the Middle East office, with lightning rapidity, a smoothly operating and thoroughly dependable bureau of finance and administration. I say without fear of contradiction that it is the outstanding finance and administrative organisation in UNRA.”