VALUE OF PATRIOTIC FUND

Southland Times, Issue 24825, 18 August 1942, Page 4

VALUE OF PATRIOTIC FUND

In a report dealing with the work on behalf of the National Patriotic Fund Board among the New Zealand troops in the Middle East, Lieutenant-Colonel F. Waite, overseas commissioner for the board, states: “I think that the men now realize that if it were not for the Patriotic Fund there would be no bands with the N.Z.E.F., no Kiwi concert party, no N.Z.E.F. Times, no mobile cinemas, no New Zealand Forces Club, no hostel at Alexandria, no quarterly gift parcels and no New Zealand tobacco service." „ . The report mentions the following work done for the,welfare of the troops:—From Alexandria out to the Western Desert a mobile New Zealand Y.M.C.A. canteen unit takes tobacco, library boxes and cinema plant to every unit in rotation. Officers and men are loud in their praise of the desert service. A complete Y.M.C.A. service with recreation hut and so on was established at the advanced base in Palestine, and men in hospital at Nazareth, Beirut and Zehle were looked after. Y.M.C.A. institutes were opened at Baalbeck and Aleppo. They were freely used and were the principal Institutes in these towns. There are New Zealand Y.M.C.A. or Church Army secretaries attached to each brigade group. These secretaries run the front line services. There are three mobile cinema units working circuits, two based on Baalbeck and one on Aleppo. “Within the limits prescribed by war the welfare work on behalf of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. is something to be proud of,” LieutenantColonel Waite adds.