FIGHTING EQUIPMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3979, 12 July 1915, Page 6

FIGHTING EQUIPMENT.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —1 feel that you would do a great service to the community if you would take up the question of fighting equipment for the troops. It is a question which virtually concerns the men about to risk their lives for us. Of my own knowledge many commissioner! and very many noncommissioned officers have left our shores without completo fighting accessories. They Hacked especially field glasses. Now it is absolutely sure that the use of one pair of binoculars saves tho lives of several men. An officer with experience states that in the hands of a sergeant a pair will result on the average in saving four lives. Suppose wo bring it home to ourselves in this way: Let us picture tho unending remorse if a relative, shot in the spine, were paralysed for life for want of one’s own gift of this absolutely necessary adjunct to a life-and-doath struggle. Take this in proof. One pair in the hands of a New Zealand officer caused thirty Turks to he put out of action on the banks of tho Suez Canal. Inferentially this saved a corresponding loss to our hearths and homes. Wo promptly reject short-sighted men, hut many ol our picked men leave us without any what may be called “military eyes” at all. The 'Wellington Patriotic Society has done a little for officers who have gone to the Front, but only a fraction of what was needed. Great and successful efforts are now being made in Wellington, Dunedin, and : Auckland, by means of patriotic car- '• nivals, to secure funds to palliate the | sufferings of the wounded. It is quite easy for donors to the carnival funds to earmark their contributions “For equipment for the prevention of death and wounds.” Besides field ! glasses, which are virtually necessary, j prism compasses for officers commanding and ordinary compasses and revolvers should he supplied. Ido earnestly hope that this suggestion will be acted upon by contributors to the funds, or that each town sending men to the Front will! see that their representatives arc given these essentials to preserving their lives when most they will be threatened, i.e., in the thick of tho fight.—-I am, etc., HOD. Wellington* July 10, 1915.