FORESTRY UNIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 149, 26 June 1944, Page 3

FORESTRY UNIT

AT WORK IN ITALY

(N.Z.E.F. Official News Service!)

ITALY, June 23. Working among rich timber country in the "toe" of Italy, members of the New Zealand Forestry Unit are making good progress with a production schedule which aims at exceeding half the total amount of timber milled in New Zealand in a year. The men are all from companies which gained a high reputation during three years of hard work in England. They operate one mill, and supervise the work of thirty Italian lumber camps. All the timber milled is taken fifty miles by road to a port near the Gulf of Taranto. On the way from England they spent a period in Tunisia, where they milled 75,000 super feet of maritime pine and oak, in country where the conditions are very difficult. After the invasion of Italy one unit started operations in central Italy, behind the Eighth Army, while the other started operating in the south. Corsican pine is the main timber 'handled. It is a timber of fine quality, much used for bridging, sleepers, dockyards, and truck bodies. All the timber used is paid for at a fair price. The mill is near a long narrow lake, and the men supplement their rations with trout caught there. •