Shorter Duty For Vietnam Troops

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31117, 21 July 1966, Page 1

Shorter Duty For Vietnam Troops

The Army will reduce the tour of duty of single soldiers in Vietnam from 18 months to 15 months.

The Chief of the General Staff (Major-General W. S. McKinnon) said at Burnham Military Camp yesterday that this was the outcome of the study made recently by the Army after reports that a single New Zealand soldier, with 18 months, served the longest of allied troops in Vietnam.

The reduction will begin with the departure from the Dominion in December of the first replacement group of the New Zealand battery.

There would be no reduction in the nine-month tour of duty for married men, said General McKinnon. Eventually it is hoped to reduce the single man’s term to 12 months by the time the second replacement group leaves New Zealand, but this will largely depend on recruiting. General McKinnon said the last of the single men who went to Vietnam on the initial tour of duty would return to New Zealand by Christmas. Married men had been steadily replaced by a “trickle” system. Late in August and for part of September, General McKinnon will make an inspection tour of New Zealand forces in Malaysia and Vietnam. The Army was still proceeding with its re-equipment programme, he said. The Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps would receive several

Mll3 armoured carriers of the type used by the Americans and Australians in Vietnam. Although the tank replacement plan would not be effective until 1968, the American Sheridan tank remained the main contender, said General McKinnon. On Monday General McKinnon will go to Fiji to observe “Exercise Tropic Dawn.” He said the Army planned to send four or five infantry groups to Fiji for jungle training each year. Apart from joint training with the Australian Army in “Exercise Tasman 5" in October, the only joint training would be at Waiouru next February when elements of the Royal Australian Air Force and the United States Air Force participated in a

large field exercise involving 6000 men of the Ist Infantry Brigade Group. General McKinnon returned to Wellington yesterday after having spent the last two days visiting Army units at Bumham Military Camp.