PROMOTION IN THE ARMY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 82, 7 April 1943, Page 2

PROMOTION IN THE ARMY

"Here's Hoping" may have the right ideas regarding the "deadheads" who have dug into paper soldiers' jobs, but the Prime Minister has a better idea for handing the fate of experienced soldiers to the "dead-heads" on a silver platter. In announcing that a survey of available manpower in the army was being undertaken with a view to releasing men to essential industry, the Prime Minister did not say that the word of the man's C.O. alone was sufficient to release to the manpower officer any N.C.O. or man regardless of his comparative value to either the army or industry. And, since most C.O.'s are at the mercy of junior commanders in the matter of personal experience of a man's qualifications or efficiency, this scheme merely presents to the "deadheads" an opportunity to satisfactorily dispose of any man they do not like and the manpower officer is too concerned with seizing all available labour to question any release. A comb-out is needed of officers who, by stepping into the breach in the early days, have served at" a critical time a/id are entitled to our deepest thanks but, without any practical experience of modern war methods, who to-day hamper the Dominion's war effort by paper war ideas, 501.