ARMY TRAINING SCHEME

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27733, 10 August 1955, Page 16

ARMY TRAINING SCHEME

REVIEW OF EARLY DIFFICULTIES GENERAL GENTRY PRAISES RESULTS “When we started the military training scheme in 1950, all of us at the top of affairs were worried because we were not sure whether we had the resources to carry it out,” said the retiring Chief of the General Staff (Major-General W. G. Gentry), when he addressed about 450 officers and men at Burnham Military Camp yesterday. “The Regular Force at that time was under strength,” Major-General Gentry said, “but we had to do it. We had no choice. In the early days, everyone had to work very hard indeed, but we got by. and in the course of time the strength of the Regular Force increased, although we were never at a stage where it was quite easy. The large number of people concerned with administration and training, particularly in the main camps, have worked very hard indeed, and worked intelligently. “It is a great national scheme, and the spotlight is on us in a way it is not on people in a big business firm. Because we are news, we get a little criticism here and there. Some of it is no doubt justified, some of it certainly is not. We are in the public eye, quite rightly, and that means we must do things well“Looking at the training scheme as a whole, he have done very well indeed.” said Major-General Gentry. “The object of the whole-time training is to train soldiers to as high a standard as possible in lOi weeks. But that is not the main object of the military training scheme, which is to produce an army the major part of which is designed to serve overseas if required. k “You cannot produce an army without units of the Territorial Force. These officers and non-commissioned officers require a good deal more training than soldiers. That is why we have a Territorial Force, whis is at last becoming complete. It is just a bit short 60 officers, but I think it will be little short by the end of the year. I “The quality of the young officers I is absolutelv first-class,” Major-General Gentry said. "At no stage has the New Zealand Army had junior officers of the quality we have today. They have been through the ranks of wholetime training, we have a good selection system, and the people of that type want to be in the Army.” The Regular Force

It was hard to find out much about the traditions of the Regular Force, said Major-General Gentry. It was time it was put into pamphlet form, at least. Immediately before the Second World War, it had consisted of 128 regular officers and 570 soldiers. Some were too old to serve overseas, some were unfit; but 125 officers and more than 560 soldiers did go to war. By the end of the war, 275 of the 560 soldiers had been commissioned. That was a fine record, and somebody ought to do something about it. Nothing had been done to commemorate the men from the Regular Force killed in the war, Major-General Gentry said. Ten per cent, of the officers and 8 per cent, of the men had been killed, and 25 per cent, had been wounded. There should be a tablet or some other form of memorial to those men. and to those killed in the First World War, and since the Second World War.

Major-General Gentry thanked the men for the excellent work they had done, and the way in which they had done it.

He was accompanied by the Officer Commanding the Southern Military District (Brigadier J. T. Burrow*,;, the Chief of Staff of the Southern Military District (Lieutenant-Colonel H. A. Purcell), and the Camp Commandant at Burnham (Lieutenant-Colonel F. L. H. Davis).