KEEN SOLDIERS

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 41, 16 February 1918, Page 7

KEEN SOLDIERS

ENTHUSIASM OF ■AUSTRALIAN 1

RECRUITS.

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON 1, 14th February. The latest Australian reinforcements have made an excellent impreseion. A system is now in full ewing whereby experienced ifietralian. officers, assisted by Imperial instructors, including many Mons men, command the training depots at Salisbury, and put a final polish on the reinforcements under war conditions. Many drafts have gone to France during the past two months. A- considerable proportion of recovered wounded men, who have been in England—in come cases twelve months—are now undergoing a slow hardening process. "The recruits have a great respeot for the men who have been through thfe fighting in France, and many warm friendships spring up with the nx.o. instructors. When the latter are ordered to France they are besieged by appeals from recruits to accompany them, in spite of the fact that the training period is unfinished. Some even willingly forego their disembarkation leave if permitted, to go to France with a popular officer. As an instance of the general keenness of the latest arrivals, a batch, of artillerymen offered individual bonuses to instructors to_give them extra instruction, in gun-laying, including night practice.