AWARDS AND SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 54, 1 September 1945, Page 6

AWARDS AND SERVICE

The difficulties experienced in deciding on the conditions under which service medals should be awarded will be fully appreciated by the public. At the same time, there appears to be good reason for a feeling of disappointment over some of the qualifications which have been applied to awards, and it is to be hoped that the discussion in Parliament last night will strengthen the hand of the Government in its endeavours to remove some of the apparent anomalies, which, while recognised here, might not be fully appreciated by the British authorities. There will be support for the plea made by Mr. Macdonald that men who served in Greece and Crete should receive special recognition. It is not possible to form a strict comparison between one engagement and another, but, in the minds of all New Zealanders, the critical battles in Greece and Crete represent a distinct phase of the war, and a decision to grant an award to the men who took part in those campaigns would find wide support. The qualifications attaching to awards for service in the Pacific area are also disappointing from the New Zealand point of view. Many men from this country, and a large number of them volunteers, saw service on Pacific islands which are excluded under the terms of the British White Paper. It is true that these islands did not become a centre of hostilities, but the fact remains that the men were called upon to serve there under the most trying conditions, and it was only the fortune of war that prevented them from coming into direct conflict with the enemy. Had the progress of the war taken a different turn, it is possible that those men would have been in the thick of bitter fighting, under conditions of extreme difficulty and danger. It is to be hoped that even now it will be possible to obtain for them the recognition which they so richly deserve. The need to guard against a widening of the conditions which would have the effect of cheapening the awards for those who have fully earned them will be appreciated. All that is desired is that they should not be narrowed to the point at which there is a danger of injustice.