A REPORT ON THE HOME GUARD

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 19, 17 October 1942, Page 6

A REPORT ON THE HOME GUARD

The report of the committee appointed by the War Council to inquire into the organization, training, and equipment of the Home Guard will have been studied with interest by members of that useful and self-sacrificing body-of men who have given so much of their time and energies to defence duties in the face of what has often seemed to them rather poor official encouragement. Many grievances ventilated from time to time in regard to the paucity of equipment and other -matters essential to efficiency in training are now seen to have been justified by the facts revealed. On the other hand what seems in some cases to have had the colour of official neglect or indifference is shown to have been due to difficulties in obtaining adequate supplies in the order of military priorities which demanded that urgent requirements for the Territorial Force and the N.Z.E.F. should have first call.

These difficulties, it would appear from the report, are now in a fair way to being solved. Moreover, the publicity given to the programme of supplies for the Home Guard from now on until the force is fully and satisfactorily equipped provides a record for its members and the public by which future progress can be checked. A great deal remains to be done. Upon the rate of progress made will depend how soon the general efficiency of the Guard can be brought up to the standard its members themselves are aiming at, and are anxious and keen to achieve. It is not unnatural that many Home Guardsmen should have felt in the earlier stages of their service that their training lacked a sense of reality due to their being poorly equipped for military exercises. To this has been added a feeling of dissatisfaction at what has been considered too much official delay in arriving at a fair basis of pay as well as compensation for out-of-pocket expenses when long distances had to be travelled to attend parades and training under service conditions.

It is to their credit that the force has held together, and maintained its esprit-de-corps under such discouragements, as well as it has done. The Home Guard has been one of the least advertised branches of the national war effort, largely because its service, though a vital part of the defence organization, has been more or less unobtrusive. Men have turned out in all weathers to fulfill the duties required of them. Many of them are of an age and have been engaged in occupations which have meant that Home Guard training must have been an accustomed tax upon their energies and physique. In spite of these and other handicaps it is characteristic of the spirit of the Guard that in the main its grievances have been concerned with the lack of equipment essential to greater efficiency, The report gives encouraging promise that these inadequacies will be made good. It is to be hoped that the promise will be speedily fulfill^ 1