Selective Training

Press, Volume C, Issue 29537, 12 June 1961, Page 3

Selective Training

Sir,—The prospect of selective training for Army personnel at the expense of the Navy and the Royal New Zealand Air Force is most disturbing. These two services, both requiring a very high standard of technical and professional skill, are essential to the efficient prosecution of Army manoeuvres. They are both already at the lowest strength possible for efficient operation, and should the present organisation of these services be reduced, experience vital to any wartime expansion would be lost. To create an Air Force or a Navy takes time, but it may be destroyed at the stroke of a pen. Let us see that this pen does not strike.—Yours, etc., NO OSTRICH. June 7. 1961,

Sir,—lt is to be hoped that if a selective form of compulsory military training is adopted the period of training will be extended. Under the previous scheme the initial period was 10J weeks’ basic training followed by an annua! camp of two weeks plus week-end parades. I would suggest that the initial period be extended to, say. 16 weeks, and after that no further training be undertaken. Under the previous scheme the annual camps and week-end parades were a waste of both time and money. This type of training was outmoded after the First World War. Let us have more concentrated training in base camps under Regular Army staff.— Yours, etc., ENZED. June 8, 1961.