MILITARY SCHOOL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20049, 22 September 1939, Page 6

MILITARY SCHOOL

NARROW NECK WORK GREAT ACTIVITY SEEN REM ARK ABLE CITA NG E Small in scale compared with the Papakura project, a military construction programme which began Jess than a fortnight ago at Narrow Neck. Auckland, has already completely transformed the appearance of the district training school. The rapidity with which buildings have been erected has been .remarkable.

Several improvements to the camp bad been authorised before war broke out. Since then so many additions have been found necessary that the present scope of the work bears little resemblance of the former arrangements, although a fortnight ago the first plans represented a very considerable extension of former accommodation.

Long Hours Worked

Now 300 men, a small civilian army of plasterers, carpenters, builders labourers and other specialists, are starting work every morning at 7.30 and are continuing until 6.30 at night. Hours are only slightly altered on Saturdays, the men finishing at 6 p.m. instead of 6,30.

Every night when they go home tile 20 buildings on which they daily swarm to their alloted tasks have made further progress toward completion. In another month or thereabouts it is expected that they will have finished the programme. Narrow Neck then will be an entirely new edition of the familiar camp. Where formerly a row of grey iron huts extended down the centre of the compound, with a cluster of other but larger buildings overlooking the harbour on the north-eastern side, there already are more than the skeletons of two long rows of wooden huts, dormitories, mess-rooms, a kitchen and various other buildings. Trees have been taken out bodily to make way for foundations, the ground has been levelled and many buildings after 10 days’ work are almost ready for internal fittings. Men’s Comfort Studied As at Papakura, the comfort of the officers, non-commissioend officers and men who will be using the school for training lias been closely studied. A sergeants’ dormitory, for instance, is being built into cubicles, the kitchen will be a very substantial advance on anything formerly possessed in Auckland, with every item of latest equipment, and all dormitories are having wooden floors. The largest of the buildings are six with a depth of 120 ft. They will be used mostly for sleeping quarters. Others are of varying sizes, depending upon the purpose for which they are intended. To every one a de tachment of up to 40 men has been allotted, so that no time is wasted.