SECOND DIVISION RECRUITS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1749, 6 November 1917, Page 3

SECOND DIVISION RECRUITS.

TWELVE WEEKS’ NOTICE. DATES OF MOBILISATION. Rules that concern Second Division recruits are laid down in a recruiting circular just issued by Defence Headquarters. They provide, among other things, that voluntary enlistment is now to be confined to nineteeu-year-old and twenty-year-old recruits and to Classes A .and B of the Second Division. Married men with two or more children are not to be accepted as volunteers for the present. They will be given a chance to enlist voluntarily immediately befoi’e the period when they would be reached in the ordinary course by the ballot. All recruits, voluntary or balloted, are to be attested by a district attesting officer and examined by a district medical board. The services of authorised individual medical practitioners will no longer be used. All Second Division men, whether voluntarily enlisted or balloted, are to have twelve weeks’ leave without pay after medical examination. “The policy of the Department,” states the circular, “is that a Second Division reservist (both the volunteer and the balloted man) is to have at least twelve weeks in which to arrange his private affairs between the date of his medical examination and the date of his concentration' for the purpose of proceeding to camp.” A table has been prepared for the guidance of Second Division men showing dates of medical examination with the corresponding dates of mobilisation. Volunteers attested and medically examined, or balloted men medically examined between the dates given in the first column, will be ordered to concentrate for the purpose of proceeding to camp with drafts which will reach camp between the dates in the second column; —

Exam. Date. Mobilisat’n Date Oct. 10 —Dec. 8, 1917 March 5-9,1918

Dec. 12, 1917 Jan. 5,1918 April 2-6, 1918 Jan. 7-Feb. 2, 1918 April 30-May 4, 1918.

Feb. 4-Mar. 2, 1918

May 28-Junc 1, 1918.

Mar. 4-Mar. 30, 1918 June 25-29,1918, Apr. 1-Apr. 27, 1918 July 33-27,1018. Apr. 29-May 25,

1918 Aug. 20-24,1918. May 27-June 22, 1918 Sept. 17-21, 1918 June 24-July 20, 1918 Oct. 15-19, 1918 July 22-Aug. 17, 1918 Nov. 12-16, 1918. Aug. 19-Sep. 14, 1918 Dec. 10-14, 1918

It is believed that Class A of the Second Division (married men without children) will provide three drafts, the first draft being mobilised between March slh and March 9th next. Class B (married men with one child) is expected to provide four drafts. The table shows, therefore,' that a man in Class B need not expect to be taken into camp before May 28th at earliest, while the turn of the Class C man will not come, if present anticipations are justified, before September 17th. EXCEPTIONS MADE,

The arrangement for three months’ leave after medical examination does not apply to First Division men. Exception is made also in the eases of men called up under sections 34 and 35 of the Militai’y Service Act. Section 24 provides that men who have failed to make application for enrolment in the Expeditionary Force Reserve, and so have avoided the chances of the ballot, may be called up for service summarily, and the circular directs that such men shall not receive any leave, but shall be sent direct to camp “cither for foreign service or for home service, according to their medical classification.” Men called up under section 35 (dealing with families which have not contributed sons to the Army) are to be given leave until the first concentration after their medical examination, provided that the period is not less than fourteen days. POSITION OF DEFAULTERS. In the case of defaulters from medical examination, it has been decided that, where a Second Division reservist drawn in the ballot fails to attend for medical examination on the date ordered, he will forfeit the privilege of having twelve clear weeks from the date he actually does attend, unless he proves that his failure to attend on the date ordered was through, causes beyond his control. If the reservist was to blame, for his failure to undergo examination on the proper date, he will be sent to camp twelve weeks after that date, regardless of the actual date of the examination.

Some miscellaneous orders provide that attestation must precede medical examination in all cases, that recruits must hand in their enrolment certificates at the time of medical examination, that balloted men of the Second Division will be called up for medical examination in alphabetical order, and that the dental examination of all recruits shall be conducted in camp.