CLOTHING COUPONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1942, Page 3

CLOTHING COUPONS

Q FOR PRISONERS OF WAR DIRECTIONS REGARDING PARCELS. MESSAGES MUST NOT BE ENCLOSED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Clothing coupons which are being issued to next-of-kin for personal parcels to prisoners of war should be in their hands by the last week of this month. They are being issued irrespective of when the individual parcel labels are due, which will allow recipients many weeks to procure wool and other clothing before parcels are due to be sent from New Zealand. Making this announcement, the Prisoners of War Inquiry Office in .Wellington states that the censoring department found this week in one parcel a cardboard box with a personal message written on the inside and also a message enclosed in a pair of boots. Next-of-kin are warned that if they attempt to hide messages in this way and the messages are not ‘discovered by the local censor, the parcels are liable to be confiscated in Germany and Italy. Next-of-kin wishing to send an extra amount of chocolate will be given this opportunity in the next parcels. A cable this week, regarding invalid comforts, say the British Red Cross supplies a senior British medical officer in every camp with the necessary stocks of drugs, disinfectants and invalid foods. This was found preferable to sending similar articles to individual prisoners. The cable states that it is unnecessary and undesirable that prisoners should write cither io New Zealand or London for individual parcels. Officially reported prisoners now number 6,144, and there are 12 unofficial.