FIRST IN THE FIELD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 November 1939, Page 6

FIRST IN THE FIELD

NEW ZEALAND ANTI-TANK * UNIT VISITED BY MR FRASER. “NOTHING BETTER IN BRITISH ARMY." By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, November 8. “The Government and people of New Zealand are greatly moved by your action and everything will be done to assist you in the'task you have undertaken,” said Mr P. Fraser, addressing the New Zealand anti-tank unit personnel somewhere in England, at the conclusion of a whole day’s tour by Empire Ministers of military establishments. “We in New Zealand appreciate that many of you have sacrificed your careers in England in order to join the first Dominion unit training in England,” said Mr Fraser. “All day I have seen men parading and training. I am convinced that there is nothing better than you lads in the British Army or elsewhere.”

The High Commissioner (Mr W. J. Jordan) told members of the unit that they were blazers of a new trail, taking up the task of preserving New Zealand’s name established by their predecessors a generation ago. Mr Fraser presented members of the unit with copies of the New Testament from the New Zealand Y.M.C.A., containing a message from the King, and also a wallet, embossed with a kiwi, from New Zealanders in London. The Empire delegates earlier closely inspected the unit’s work. One sergeant among the instructors, on loan from the British Army, told Mr Fraser that the New Zealand unit was the most quickly taught of any in his experience. Mr Fraser was most interested in the modern barracks where the unit is quartered, especially the bathrooms and the sleeping quarters, with their beds with wire mattresses, contrasting with the palliasses of past wars. Each hut is named after a New Zealand tree, such as kauri, rimu and so on. The walls of the recreation huts are adornec? with New Zealand scenes.

The Empire delegates spent the day in inspecting Britain’s most modern equipment and training methods. Mr R. G. Casey (Australia) was most interested in the revolutionary extent of mechanisation, which is of peculiar interest to Australia.