Integration Of Armed Services Suggested

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31519, 6 November 1967, Page 14

Integration Of Armed Services Suggested

New Zealand might well consider the economic advantages of integrating its armed forces into one body, Squadron Leader J. S. Parmelee, of the Royal Canadian Air Force, said in Christchurch yesterday.

During the last four years the Canadian armed forces had saved the Government a great deal of money by working towards a single military force, he said. Such integration seemed to be an advantage to smaller nations faced with substantial defence bills, and it did not mean that the Army, Navy or Air Force lost its individual identity, simply that services required in each arm could be drawn from a common pool. Supply officers, dentists, doctors, padres and so on could serve any of the three.

Squadron Leader Parmelee is in charge of a party of 25 Canadian airmen who arrived in Christchurch yesterday after a non-stop flight of 5100 miles from Hawaii. They flew out in a Yukon turbo-prop transport aircraft and were met at Harewood at 2.30 p.m. by members of the Christchurch Brevet Club. The flight, which has already included crossing the North Pole, is to mark the centenary of self-government in Canada. It was to have included a hop from McMurdo Sound over the South Pole to Buenos Aires, but this had to be cancelled because of a fuel shortage at the United States air base at McMurdo. The aircraft will leave at midday today for Sydney and will return to Ottawa via Hong Kong, Wake Island and Honolulu.