N.A.C. To Fly Soldiers To Auckland

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31522, 9 November 1967, Page 16

N.A.C. To Fly Soldiers To Auckland

The New Zealand Army has chartered National Airways Corporation aircraft for four flights in the next 12 days to take 240 soldiers bound for South-East Asia from Harewood to Auckland. Viscounts will be used to carry the soldiers, mainly single men, from Christchurch on November 14, 16, 18 and 20. Apart from the Saturday flight on November 18, which leave at 4.10 p.m., the remaining three flights will depart at 7.15 p.m. The Army is understood to

be still negotiating with IT. ..C. to see if the soldiers’ equipment can be flown north on normal flights. Each of the Viscounts will carry 60 soldiers. Twenty-five will travel on normal N.A.C. flights. The bulk of the half-bat-talion replacement, which will be flown by R.N.Z.A.F. Hercules from Whenuapai to Malaysia between November 14 and 27, is at present on leave—most of them in the North Island.

The men involved in the airlift are mainly single men from the South Island.

Normally in the past the Army has sent its troops to the North Island by interisland ferry.

It is understood that before the N.A.C. charter was arranged the Army made a request to the Air Force to provide the flights. This it was unable to comply with because of operational commitments.