WAITING TO SAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 127, 26 November 1945, Page 6

WAITING TO SAIL

DIVISION OVERSEAS

FORCE FOR JAPAN READY

O.C. AUCKLAND, THis Day. After being absent from New Zealand i'or nearly three years, Brigadier G. B. Parkinson, D.5.0., commander of the 6th Infantry Brigade, who has recently been in command of the New Zealand troops in Egypt, arrived by flying-boat from Sydney yesterday. He was met by Mrs. Parkinson, and will leave for his home in Wellington tonight. Asked how the New Zealand soldiers still in the Middle East were employing their time while awaiting transport home, Brigadier Parkinson said that their study of the arts of war had definitely swung to those of peace. The Education and Rehabilitation Service had now the opportunity for which it had been looking, and on the whole was doing a tremendous lot in the way of education, recreation, and vocational and cultural training. Wherever New Zealand soldiers were serving in the Middle East they also had the opportunity of taking correspondence courses and sitting university examinations.

A PATIENT WAIT

"Everyone concerned is being patient and forbearing, knowing of the immense difficulty in providing shipping in view of war losses and hazards of the sea—which include strikes—and the priority properly given longerservice soldiers, internees, and prisoners of war, of whom there are particularly large numbers from the Far East," said Brigadier Parkinson, commenting on the question of transporting the New Zealand ers home. What was left of the Division in Florence was comfortably housed for the winter.

"The short-service soldier selected for occupational service in Japan is looking forward with some eagerness to the task, which will give him an opportunity to see a good deal of the world," continued Brigadier Parkinson. These men were assembled in Italy.

Leaving New Zealand with the Ist Echelon, Brigadier Parkinson commanded an artillery regiment until the middle of 1941. when he was appointed to command the training brigade for all arms at the base in Egypt. He returned to New Zealand in November, 1941, to raise and command the New Zealand Army Tank Brigade. A year later he returned in time for the Tunisian campaign, and commanded the 6th Infantry Brigade. He served in the early Western Desert campaign and in Greece. The citation to his D.S.O. award mentioned "resource and leadership" and "great coolness and gallantry." i