MAIN BODY MEN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3051, 12 April 1917, Page 6

MAIN BODY MEN

Sir,—l was interested to see the. paragraph on .this subject in. your.' issire of April 5. The treatment' meted out to these men has always been * sore subject with me and many other; people in the Dominion. I agree with everything the returned soldier say a iu his interview, except, perhaps, his suggestion that the su'xrivors' of the> Main Body, alas, all too' few,- sliould! he given a trip to New "Zealand. I do think, however, that they should be given a reasonable say, a, month or 6i'x weeks in the OH Country. .■■'••'

Any reasonable person surP pose that men who had served.though! the Gallipoli campaign and put in -tw<£ lengthy sojourns "among the satad* dirt, Hies, and jabbering niggers ok Egypt" (using the words of one of the* sufferers), would have been theveryV first men to bo given leave to visitt England after our forces got to France* Instead, however, we find that men; of late reinforcements were given leayef within a few weeks of their arrival ia France, while there were, hundreds o| men of our Main Body who had no 1 * been able to get leave •in Noveniberv 1916, after having put in two years and four months of the most arduous arut exacting, service. When they, did ge* leave, they got just the same ten dayq. as men of the latest reinforcements, in. France are getting. Surely w-hat' thei. Main Body did and endured and suffered during the Gallipoli' campaign; should have entitled them \to double or treble the leave of those men who have not served as many months in: the'firing line as the Slain Body have years. I never saw or heard a growl from any Main Body man on this ques* tion of leave until . they' found . tha|i men of the Tenth, Eleventh,- ■ and!. Twelfth Reinforcements .were heing preferred to them. in the matter ofi leave, an'd lhat men who hadi had jobsi at the bases, and depots, and -who had never heard a shot fired in anger, were, given English leave. I recently; hear* of one of the latter class who bad had! his ten days' leave'about Christmas, and wrote rejoicing that ho had gob another fourteen days' leave... Ofc course, it may be regarded as a coriw plinient to Main Body men that theyi are too valuable lo be spared from the* front, but it seems poor policy to work our best and hardiest men to death or to IfjtVo them returned home invalided for want of a reasonable spell from the strain of active" servico underr modern conditions. My own sow, who. left as a member of the Main Bodyf two and a half years ago, reports .himself, 1 rejoice to say, as perfectly he <ind well, but how much longer can he stand the strain without' spell?, He was six months on the' GaW Upoli Peninsula, until invalided byt jaundice, and. has completed a fulß year's service in Itho firing line ir.i France, and landed in England on hiss ten days' leave on December 13 last* Personally, I consider-the treatment, of the Main Body in this matter off leave and in many other ways has beeu: am, etc., ■___;_*, HUBERT BURNETT. | Woodville, April 9.

Sir—May I-add to the remarks. <rS "Parent" re the boys now remaining, of the Main Body? I am not anxious for my boy fo come home unless it is for good and all, but I do think more, consideration ought to be. given thfemt in the matter of "commissions, "\\htf should General Godley hwerach a "down" on the Main. Body? With tta exception of a week m May, 1916, and three days in January last, my boy had! no holiday-not half . da;' «ok-«* .iwav at any tune during eight months in GalHpolvand in France for a year. Ho was practically head, boy in tl«* largest secondary school m New Zcaland, besides being in all athletic teams, and so far he has been advanced one step in his career, at tha "front." Well bpoken of by liis Buperior officers, too! He has applied for transfer to English service, but always tefused, though plenty have got transfers who left long after him.—l am, So., PARENT OP TWO.