DISTRICT QUOTA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20131, 28 December 1939, Page 11

DISTRICT QUOTA

DIVISIONAL DRAFTS SECOND ECHELON MEN 60—70 FROM GISBORNE AREA NEEDS TOTAL 315 Many members of the Gisborne public were startled to read in an official advertisement relating to recruiting needs of the New Zealand Division published last evening, that 315 men were needed from this district for the Second Echelon. This figure, it shbuld be stated, applies not to the Gisborne district, but to the No. 7 military area, in which Gisborne and the East Coast arc included. Men required from the No. 7 military area for the Second Echelon will be contributed by districts lying between Cape Runaway and Masterton. Gisborne and the East Coast to the northward, and also Wairoa, will be asked to provide only about 60 men, if the allocation of quotas >s carried out on the same basis as for the First Echelon. It is possible, and even likely, however, that all men already examined and passed medically fit will be absorbed into the second big draft. Stimulation of Recruiting Reports from many parts of New Zealand indicate the urgent necessity for a stimulation of public interest in recruiting, if the voluntary system is to yield the number of fit men needed to build up the Second New Zealand Division. In almost every centre the numbers now available for service with'the Second Echelon are below requirements, and Gisborne, Wairoa and the East Coast comprise perhaps the one area in which no immediate shortage of men need be feared.

Well over 70 men were available a fortnight ago, and though some of these have been drawn up for First Echelon specialist posts, it should be possible to find more than enough to fill a normal draft for the reinforcement which is to go into camp next month. All the men listed as available for service are either single, or married with not more than two children.