MILITARY SERVICE

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29728, 23 January 1962, Page 12

MILITARY SERVICE

Birth-Date Ballot

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, Jan. 22.

A lottery-like drawing in Wellington tomorrow will choose about one in seven 20-year-olds likely to be conscripted into the Army within a year.

Mr K. W. Fraser, Dominion president of the Returned Services' Association, will draw marbles from wicker baskets in a ballot to choose the birtih-dates. not names of those to be drafted. Numbers on the marbles drawn will provide 50-odd dates between July 1, 1941, and June 30. 1942. yielding birth dates for some 2500 youths. Later this week. Labour Department district offices will send out notices to those whose birth dates have been drawn, requiring them to undergo a medical check. From previous experience, the department expects some 24 per cent, to be rejected for service on medical grounds. These rejects, with those expected successfully to seek training postponement, should leave the department with a list of about 2000 names for the Army.

The Army will subsequently issue call-up notices for the initial 14-week camp training. The camps will be held at Waiouru in May, September and January. The first draft will be of about 550 recruits but subsequent drafts are expected to be of about 700

Until it gets further returns and registrations in from district offices, the Labour Department will not be able to assess how many 20-year-olds have failed to register.

Its most recent estimate was of 4000 recalcitrants, but the department has since traced many of these and the estimate has dropped considerably. Police have power to question those who might reasonably be supposed to have registered Those who did not register by December 15. 1961. are liable to a I'so fine.

But it is only those who have not registered without reasonable excuse by the time the ballot is taken who become liable for automatic call-up.

Because of difficulties in tracing them, they are unlikely to be included in the first draft but are expected to be incorporated in subsequent intakes. Of those who have registered, about 900 have already volunteered for service.