OUR TROOPS OVERSEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1941, Page 4

OUR TROOPS OVERSEAS

PRAISED BY SIR G. WILLIAMS STANDARD OF NEW ZEALAND TERRITORIALS. NEED OF APPLYING LESSONS • OF WAR. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 16. Paying a tribute to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Lieutenant-Gen-eral Sir Guy Williams said that its members could not have played a more magnificent part in the war. Their .work. had shown the value of the advanced training they had received in Egypt, and they had done well in some of the hardest fighting of the war. Lieutenant-General Williams visited Burnham Camp, and found that as an Army camp and a military training centre it compared well with similar establishments in England.

In the brief time he had had to see them, he said in an interview, New Zealand Territorials seemed about the same as Territorials in England, though those -at Home had probably had a much more intensive programme of training. When they had the same equipment to train with, New Zealand Territorials promised to make as good soldiers as their colleagues in England. The provision of equipment for territorial training must take second place to the provision of equipment needed for actual theatres of war, but the position was all the time improving—though it naturally took longer for equipment to reach New Zealand. But there was enough here to train the men now, and the promise held out both of the future of the force and its equipment was good. General Williams emphasised the value of the experience which could be imparted to troops now in training by men who had taken part in the overseas campaigns. The fast pace at which war moved now made it necessary for the lessons learned in each new sphere of battle to be immediately applied to training methods.