HOME DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 128, 26 November 1940, Page 9

HOME DEFENCE

TERRITORIAL TRAINING

PERIOD NEARING COMPLETION

PREPARING FOR 1941

Some Territorial units at. present carrying out their intensive training in camp will, with the exception of certain personnel, complete their course on November 30 and return to civil life subject to being required to carry on normal Territorial training consisting of night parades and an annual camp period. Central District units due to finish on November 30 are the 2nd Field Regiment, N.Z.A., the Bth Medium Battery, N.Z.A., the 2nd Field Company N.Z. Engineers and Signallers.

Personnel of the above units who were called up by ballot ana who have not, therefore, completed three months in camp, will continue training until December 29. Instructors to carry on the training of these men will be withdrawn from the respective regiments. Fifty per cent, of the Northern and Central District Signal Companies, which have been in training at a signal Territorial damp at Trentham, will also complete their training on November 30, but here again personnel from balloted men who have not been in camp for the prescribed period will remain until December 29. This affects only the Central District Company, for the Northern District Com-, pany at present contains no balloted men. .

Only half of these two signal companies have been called up for training at the one time in accordance with an arrangement made with the Post and Telegraph Department (from which most of the personnel are drawn) to avoid a serious staff shortage in the Department. The remaining half of the two companies will enter camp on January 7.

Infantry units will not have completed their training until December 29. Central District units in this position are "A" Company (Wellington) of the N.Z. Scottish Regiment and a ma-chine-gun platoon and the Ist Battalion, Wellington-West Coast Regiment, all in camp at Wanganui, the Ist Battalion, Hawke's Bay Regiment, at Dannevirke, ari.d the Ist Battalion, Taranaki Regiment, at Waverley. BRIGADE OPERATIONS. From December 15 to December 22 these infantry units will be concentrated in the Palmerston North-Feilding area for brigade training. When that is completed they will return to their respective camps for Christmas and to pack up in readiness for their return to home stations. Territorial officers and n.c.o.s who are in training at the various wings of the Central District School of Instruction (Winter Show, Tauherenikau, and Trentham) in readiness for taking over their units to be called up early in the new year, with the exception of instructors dealing with 2nd N.Z.E.F. troops and certain other officers and n.c.o.s. who are to remain at Trentham, will be concentrated at Foxton as from December 1. They will include officers and n.c.o.s of the Ist Reinforcements, 2nd Field Regiment, ~N.Z.A.; s Ist Reinforcements, Bth Medium Battery, N.Z.A.; Ist Reinforcements, 2nd Field Company, N.Z. Engineers; further units of the N.Z. Scottish Regiment; 2nd Battalion, Wellington Regiment; 2nd Battalion, Hawke's Bay Regiment; 2nd Field Ambulance, and the 2nd. Provost Company. Officers and n.c.o.s of the 2nd Composite Com- | pany, A.S.C., 2nd Mobile Veterinary Section, and the 4th Signal Company | will remain at Trentham.

All the above commissioned and noncommissioned officers are undergoing a two mpnths' intensive course to prepare them for training their units when they enter camp for the January-Feb-ruary-March period.