NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST WOMEN’S O.C.T.U.

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 107, 30 January 1943, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST WOMEN’S O.C.T.U.

Passing-Out Ceremony Yesterday was an important day for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in New Zealand, for the first group of officer-cadets completed their course of special training at the Army School of Instruction and passed out for commissions.

There were 15 in the squad which paraded before the Adjutant-General, Brigadier A. E. Conway, 0.8. E., N.Z.S.C., and were inspected and addressed by him. Brigadier Conway was met on the parade ground by Lieut.-Colonel J. N. Henry, command.ant of the school, and Mrs. Vida E. Jowett. chief commandant of the W.A.A.C., who was accompanied by the three district commandants, Miss D. M- Hawkins (Auckland), Mrs. D. O. YVhyte (Wellington), and Miss J. N. Erwin (Christchurch), and the commandant of the Central Military District YV.A.A.C. camp, Miss O. Barron, was also present to see the first women’s O.C.T.U. complete its course. After a short but smartly carried, out inspection and march past, the officercadets and their friends were addressed 'by the Adjutant-General, who bore a special message from the General Officer Commanding the New Zealand Forces, 'Lieut.-General Puttick, wishing the cadets well in their new spheres of activity. Brigadier Conway, after stressing the relationship of the New Zealand YV.A.A.C. to the parallel Auxiliary Territorial Service in Britain, congratulated them on their showing on the parade ground, and also on the way they had responded to the work they had been put through at the Army School. "No class has responded so well or worked so diligently as you.” he told the women. “Women do enter into the spirit as well as the letter of anything they undertake,” he remarked. Brigadier Conway warned them that the duties they would now be undertaking would not be easy. 'Their main responsibility would be the welfare of the women belonging to their units. The majority of these women were as yet only in Ihe recruit stage. The first thing would be to help them to settle down. The new officers’ duties will in the main be the command of groups of W.A.A.C.’s, and the course they have completed included instruction in stores control, accounts, correspondence, first aid, outdoor cooking, diets, recreational training, and games. It occupied six weeks.