DEFENCE TRAINING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1938, Page 4

DEFENCE TRAINING

NOTABLE INCREASE IN RECRUITING. CITIZENS GENERALLY SHOWING INTEREST. During recent months considerable interest has been manifested in the activities of the various Volunteer Territorial units in the Dominion. As a result, there has been a definite increase in the number of recruits offering, 400 men being enrolled in various units in Wellington alone during July. This is by far the greatest number of recruits to be enrolled in New Zealand in any similar period since the voluntary system of territorial training was introduced.

Not , only has the interest of young men been aroused, however, but the citizens of New Zealand generally have shown their interest and approval by assisting in the fulfilment of the schemes put forward. Firms and individual employers have encouraged their employees to join up by granting them leave to attend the annual training operations of their units. In some instances employers have seen to it that their employees lost no pay whilst so training.

Again a large firm in Wellington allowed the Territorial units the free use of its valuable window space for a considerable period for publicity purposes. This outside interest serves to intensify the keenness of those already serving in the Territorials, and in this district it has resulted in bigger and better parades. In Masterton, which is included in the area from which the Hawke’s Bay Company of the Composite Battalion is recruited, it is possible to join up with an infantry platoon which, it is hoped, will shortly be equipped with the new Le Bren machine gun, a trench mortdr detachment, or a mounted rifle troop. All units began their annual rifle and machine gun practice on the range this week-end.