COURT MARTIAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 June 1941, Page 3

COURT MARTIAL

CHARGES AGAINST OFFICER FAILURE OF MAJOR COUNT. SERGEANTS SAID TO BE CONCERNED. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Details of remarkable generosity on the part of an officer toward men under his command and also to overseas troops to whom he gave goods of a wholesale value of £6OO were given before a general court martial in Wellington yesterday when Major George Farquhar Vance, officer commanding guards, vital points, Central Military District, was declared not guilty of a charge of scandalous conduct. There was an alternative and minor charge of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline. On this charge the Court will deliver its recommendation to the officer convening the Court, Brigadier N. W. McD. Weir, officer commanding the Central Military District. Major Vance was charged with behaving in a scandalous manner in that on or about April 17 through the instrumentality of an n.c.o. under his command, Sergeant R. A. Godtschalk, he illicitly obtained possession of certain official documents, namely, a nominal roll of 49 officers and other ranks, and a nominal roll of 80 officers and other ranks returning to New Zealand, together with their details, including home addresses; it was charged that he communicated the said rolls to Vance-Vivian, Ltd., of which firm he was a member, in order that it might. circularise some of the invalid soldiers, whose names and addresses were on the rolls, urging them to buy the wares vended by the firm.

The Court will resume today, when two sergeants will be charged. The charge against Sergeant Robert Almany Godtschalk is one of conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline in that at the request of his commanding officer, Major G. F. Vance, he illicitly obtained from Sergeant J. A. McK. Wallace, of the Sick and Wounded Records. Central Military District, possession of the rolls referred to and handed the same to Major Vance so that the contents might be used for the private benefit of Major Vance.

The charge against Sergeant John Alexander McKane Wallace is that of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline in that at Sergeant Godtschalk's request he illicitly gave possession of the nominal rolls referred to in the charge to Sergeant Godtschalk so that the contents might be used for the private benefit of Major Vance. ,