ARMY SELLING HORSESHOES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27397, 9 July 1954, Page 12

ARMY SELLING HORSESHOES

MECHANISATION NOW COMPLETE An uniivalled opportunity for the superstitious has been made available by the New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps, which is advertising for sale 1880 pairs (approximately) of horse shoes. They are iron, they are new, they are in various sizes, and most of them are fullered. A fuller is a blacksmith’s tool with a round edge, used in grooving or spreading hot iron. The sale of these horseshoes-must be very nearly the last act in the gradual change to a completely Mechanised army. Early in the war there were mounted Home Guards units in some coastal districts, and one was operating for a time in the Banks Peninsula area, but now it is entirely petrol and wheels instead of oats and horseshoes.

The last Army horses of them all, Howitzer and Barbara, were recently relieved of their duties, at .Waiouru and put into the paddock. A soldier who had spent all the active part of his 24 years’ service on his feet, as Howitzer did, would probably feel entitled to a rest, too. Barbara, a comparative rookie, did not join the service until 1936.

If the Army finds it difficult, in spite of motoring costs t to dispose of the 3760 horseshoes, it might investigate the possibilities of a market in Canada. There they could be used for the pitching game New Zealand servicemen found so popular during the war.