PATRIOTIC PARCELS

Southland Times, Issue 24829, 22 August 1942, Page 4

PATRIOTIC PARCELS

RUMOURS DISCOUNTED "Any suggestion that patriotic parcels are not being delivered is incorrect. Wherever it has been humanly possible every man received at least two parcels at Christmas time. This accounts for tens of thousands for a start off,” states a letter from a New Zealand officer serving in the Middle East quoted in a bulletin of the National Patriotic Fund Board. . . , _ “The boys in the desert received for the most part far more than this,” the writer adds. "I have spoken to at least 10 of these chaps, none of whom received fewer than three. It is only natural that anyone who was a prisoner in Bardia, for instance, Perhaps did not get his parcel at Christmas, but you can take it as a certainty that over 90 per cent, of the men in the N.Z.E.F. received their full quota of patriotic parcels eventually, and, in fact, a splendid job was done by those doing the distributing. I had occasion two months ago to have a man up on tlie mat for writing home that he had received absolutely nothing when 1 personally had handed him two patriotic parcels 10 days before. “The complaint about having to buy the free gifts at the canteens is just too contemptible to discuss. The Patriotic Fund is doing a great job of work (our Christmas dinner, for instance) not to mention sports gear, the recreational huts, mobile cinemas, mobile canteens, the New Zealand Fo /p e , s Club in Cairo and hundreds of thmgs which the soldier does not realize come from the Patriotic Fund.”