WATER AND PETROL

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24022, 10 August 1943, Page 3

WATER AND PETROL

PROBLEMS OF AFRICAN CAMPAIGN When outlining some of the difficulties of transport and supply during the recent fighting in North Africa, Captain F. Wilson, of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force, in an address to the Businessmen’s Club in Christchurch yesterday, remarked that it took 12 tons of petrol to move the division one mile. “Petrol and water were the main items that gave us most worry,” he stated. “We found that the usual petrol tins were of little use for hard wear, and that many of them arrived half empty.” By contrast were the special containers used by the Germans both for water and petrol, he said, a number of which had been captured by the New Zealanders and used with much success. The problem of water, said Captain Wilson, was always acute, and the allowances had to be reduced to half a gailan a man a day, which actually meant only one bottle, and it was little enough. The speaker paid tribute to the lefthook flanking movements that had made the New Zealanders famous in the desert fighting, and had been responsible for securing many German and Italian prisoners. “Fighting in the last stages of the campaign,’’ said Captain Wilson, “was very serious indeed, and we had many casualties as the enemy,had the advantage of the high country and made full use of it." It was in that part of the campaign, he added, that the Maoris had fought so magnificently. Wills in Hospital “The question very seldom arises, but 1 do not think it is a general rule in hospitals in the Dominion that members of the medical and nursing staffs should not witness wills,” said the medical superintendent of Wellington Public Hospital, Dr. J. Cairney, when commenting on the fact that such a rule, as revealed last week in the Supreme Court. Hamilton, is in force at the Waikato Hospital. “We certainly 1 discourage members of the nursing staff from acting, because that is a little unsatisfactory from all points of view. If a patient is in extremis the usual practice is to get a doctor to act. The lawyer who prepared the will generally prefers that course, since the very xuct that doctor acts Implies that he is satisfied the patient is in a fit state to mate the will. The usual practice is for a member of the junior medical staff to witness the patient’s signature.” |