N.Z. TROOPS IN PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24053, 15 September 1943, Page 4

N.Z. TROOPS IN PACIFIC

COMFORTS TO BE SENT FROM AMERICA

ARRANGEMENT WITH WAR RELIEF SOCIETY

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, September 14. As a result of the visit to New Zealand of Mr Harold Rabling, chairman of the Anzac Division of the British War Relief Society in New York, a large quantity of recreational and other material is to be supplied from America for the use of Dominion service personnel in the south Pacific area. It has also been arranged that 500.000 American cigarettes shall be sent to Britain for New Zealand airmen, and Mr Rabling/ has handed to the National Patriotic Fund Board the sum of £IOOO from his organisation as a gift for this year’s Christmas parcels fund. Mr Rabling, who is an Australian by birth,' is resident director of the Vacuum Oil.Company in New York, and has lived for many years in the United States. He is at present in Auckland toward the end of a tour of Australia and New Zealand on the business of his company, and he will return to New York in due course. In an interview Mr Rabling said that since its formation the Anzac Division had organised hospitality and entertainment for Australian and New Zealand servicemen and servicewomen in the , United States, and had sent large quantities of comforts and supplies to theatres of war In which the forces of the two countries were engaged. It was now switching most of its overseas gift organisation to the Pacific, but would continue to, send goods to Britain as might be necessary. His discussions with the National Patriotic Fund Board in Wellington, Mr Rabling continued, had shown that there were some comforts which troops in the Pacific needed, and which were almost unprocurable locally. Accordingly, it had been arranged that goods of these classes should be sent from America at the expensk of the Anzac Division. They included 300 reams of bond paper for making up into writing pads in New Zealand, 200 dozen heavy cups and 'the same quantity of saucers. 46 dozen soft baseballs, six dozen baseball bats, supplies of hair combs and short pencils, and a quantity of indoor games such as checkers, chess, and dominoes. Before his visit the division had supplied paper from which thousands of writing pads had been made for the use of New Zealand service personnel.