SERVICE IN TWO ARMIES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24768, 8 January 1946, Page 6

SERVICE IN TWO ARMIES

NEW ZEALAND TROOPS ENVIED

CHRISTCHURCH OFFICER’S EXPERIENCES Comparisons between his experiences as a signalman in the New ZeaDivision as an officer in the .British Army were given by Lieutenant Arthur Manning, of Christchurch, in an interview with “The Press” yesterday. After serving with the New Zealand Divisional Signals unit in Greece and in the Western Desert campaigns, Lieutenant Manning was selected in 1943 to team for a commission in the Royal Corps of Signals. He returned to New Zealand with a recent draft from Great Britain. “For my own part I found British Army conditions neither as strict nor ®^ ange as 1 had expected,” he said. Blimps’ were non-existent, the old school tie was interred for the duration, mid the ingrained British reverence of tradition, I found, had been adapted to the needs of war. The differences that did exist between the two armies mainly concerned the relations between officers and men, and the relatively lower living conditions of British privates. “The free and easy camaraderie of the New Zealand Division was missing, and the gulf between British officers and men was most pronounced. I followed the Kiwi custom of scattering Christian names broadcast, and landed *on the carpet.’ Very tactfully, it was pointed out that Christian names were tabu because *the men resented it.’ I found that they did resent it. The class distinction which is seized on and magnified by every critic of England is as religiously fostered by »those at the bottom of the ladder as by those at the top and, in the Army, any attempt by an officer to talk to other ranks as equals is resented and interpreted as a sign of weakness. It is hard for a Kiwi to get used to that idea, and yet it is quite understandable. “Potential Officer Material’’ “A high-ranking British officer once said that nearly every man in the New Zealand Army was potential officer material. In the British Army, officer material was hard to find, and, in most cases, the difference in education and intelligence between commissioned and other ranks was so vast that the two could find no common ground outside the Army. To my mind this segregation is the only workable idea in the British Army; and yet its strength is its weakness, because while it makes for excellent discipline, it tends to sap whatever initiative does exist. However, it works: and while the Tommy realised the effectiveness of the free and easy attitude, he did not envy it.” British soldiers envied the New Zealanders their better battle dresses, higher pay, food parcels, and patriotic issues, pay without income tax, furloughs and even the Kiwi Concert Party, Lieutenant Manning continued. “All those things served to give the impression that New Zealand was a land of milk and honey, and compared with a British private’s conditions, the Kiwis did live on the fat of the land. Pay and Rations Compared “The British private’s pay was lamentably small even before income tax was deducted, and English income tax is no joke. His rations were adequate, but they could never be augmented by cake or tinned stuff from home. When the New Zealand furlough scheme came into operation, the British tour of overseas service was four and a half years with no remission for good conduct. The British E.N.S.A. entertainments forward of base were so bad that they became a byword. Nowhere in the fighting zones was there a British troops club comparable with the New Zealand Forces’ Club at Cairo, Rome, Bari, or Florence. If he was wounded the Tommy found that hospitals generally were iron-disciplined barracks where the patients had to ‘lie to attention’ during the matron’s inspection. Now that it is over the Tommy is to collect a gratuity which will keep him in cigarettes for the first few months of civilian life. Is it any wonder New Zealand was looked on as a paradise, and that I was bombarded with questions about the post-war prospects here?’’ British Interest in Maoris Next to the British soldiers’ interest in New Zealand’s living conditions was their interest in the Maoris. As soldiers the Maoris were coupled with the Ghurkas, and that was the highest praise a British soldier could give anyone. Probably because of the influence of pictorial magazines, there was a tendency to think that Maoris, dressed in mats, thronged the main centres and that those centres contained a large percentage of carved huts. “I was once asked if many of the Maoris spoke English and if they were confined to reservations like the North American Indians,” Lieutenant Manning added. “I often heard it said that the Kiwi soldiers were *the best of the lot,’ and as a Kiwi in the British Army I was flattered but suspicious.” he said. “It took two years of British Army life to allay that suspicion and make me realise that the average Tommy does! really regard the Kiwis as the salt of the earth and New Zealand itself as a minor paradise.”

The injured people are: Mrs Olive Oates, of Sandringham, injured right leg and severe shock. Mr Ivan Jurich, of Mount Eden, believed to have fractured his right arm. Mrs Mavis Carmont, of Ponsonby. severe shock.