TRAINING NAVAL RATINGS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22304, 19 January 1938, Page 3

TRAINING NAVAL RATINGS

BENEFITS OF EXCHANGE SCHEME NEW ZEALANDERS TO RETURN THIS , YEAR (THE PRESS Special Service.! AUCKLAND, January 18. An opportunity of studying the aptual results of the scheme for the exchange of naval ratings will be provided this year when the first batch of New Zealand ratings will return after three years’ special service overseas. Most of the men from the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, who went to England in 1935, will return in March, and after receiving regulation foreign service leave, will be drafted either to' the Achilles or the Leander. At the ■ same time the Imperial ratings who have been serving with the New Zealand Division on exchange, will return to England, leaving probably in May. The exchange system, which was inaugurated in 1935, has been carried on annually with the selection of drafts of New Zealand ratings who go to England for specialised training and service in the Home or Mediterranean Fleets. The main object of the scheme is to give local ratings a more extensive knowledge of naval practice than they "can obtain on a small station. and for this reason efforts are made to have the men drafted, not to cruisers, but to battleships, destroyers, or other types of. warship which are not attached to the New Zealand Division. The benefits which can accrue from the scheme are strikingly demonstrated in the case of a New Zealand rating who at present occupies a position of considerable responsibility in the signals branch of the service on board the Achilles. A few years ago. when he was sent to England lor special training, he occupied a similar in H.M.S. Hood, where the responsibilities were naturally much greater. The prospects of the exchange scheme are such that it is certain to be continued, and a draft of New Zealand ratings will probably be selected later this year to travel to England. However, the main point of interest for the Dominion naval authorities is to see how experience of fleet work has reacted on the men to return this

year. It is thought that a definite opinion can then be formed concerning the value of the scheme.