TROOPS IN PACIFIC

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 May 1943, Page 4

TROOPS IN PACIFIC

NEW CLUB PREMISES ERECTED PLANT FOR ICE-CREAM MAKING. FACILITIES IN NEW CALEDONIA. Two club buildings for the use of New Zealand troops at New Caledonia are being provided by the National Patriotic Fund Board. There is a lack of suitable building materials on the island and because of this the premises have to be pre-fabricated and shipped from New Zealand. Each will comprise a concert hall, writing room, dining room, library, and lounges, and there will also be provision for showers and boating facilities. At Tonga buildings have been taken over and those will be equipped by the board to provide a recreation centre for men on leave and also a club. The recreation centre will include facilities for dances and for playing football, cricket, baseball, and tennis. In addition to these new ventures, the board some time ago built and equipped a fine club building at Fiji. The Patriotic Board is also supplying an ice cream manufacturing plant, complete with hardening, holding, and ageing rooms. This equipment, for which a contract has been let, is to be installed at New Caledonia. The capacity of the plant will be 100 gallons of ice cream a day. An ice cream making plant, which was also given by the Patriotic Board, has been in operation for some time at the New Zealanders’ base camp in the Middle East. The ingredients for making the ice cream are sent from New Zealand by the board, and this course will also be followed in the case of the plant for the Pacific.

Gradually services instituted by the patriotic organisation for the New Zealand Forces in the Middle East are being duplicated for the benefit of the men in the Pacific theatre.