AIR FORCE

Evening Star, Issue 23511, 27 February 1940, Page 6

AIR FORCE

BOARD SITTING IN DUNEDIN PROSPECTIVE AIRMEN INTERVIEWED GOOD RESPONSE FROM DOMINION A special board is sitting at the Drill Hall interviewing applicants for air crew sections of the New Zealand! Air Force. The board, which has been appointed by N.Z.R.A.F Headquarters,' Wellington, comprises Flight-lieuten-ant A. E. M‘Arthur (of the personnel depai'tment), Mr E. Caradus (director of educational services, and senior inspector of secondary schools), and Mr C. O. N. Johnston. The board tours New Zealand, interviewing prospective candidates —paying special attention to personality and educational merits—in every centre. It sat in Dunedin towards the end of last year, and wall return here in about three months’ time. This time the. tour started at New Plymouth, embraced Wellington, then the South Island was visited ' At the close of the South Island tour the board will visit Napier, Gisborne, and Auckland!. From Dunedin it goes to Invercargill, returning to Christchurch on March where it expects to sit a week, as between 400 and 500 applicants are awaiting interviews there. , . The men interviewed are those desiring positions of pilots, observers, and gunners, and they will be trained under the Empire scheme. Educational qualifications akin to university standards are required of these men, and once they are passed fit t by the Medical Board, those who do not already possess the educational qualities needed are required to attend special classes which have been established ,m the various centres. Between 700 and 800 applicants are undergoing such training, but the Dunedin percentage is small, there being between 25 and 30 at the King Edward Technical College The special class there is under the supervision of the principal (Mr W. G. Aldridge), the instructors being Captain W. N. Woods, education officer at Taieri aerodrome, and Jlr A. J. Gillman, of the staff of the Otago Boys High School. . . ~ , Mr Caradus this morning stated'that very good results indeed were being obtained at these classes, for the men were keen, and determined to qualify. Local classes are expected to increase in size from now on, as there are more men volunteering who do not quit© measure up to University education standards . . Exactly 179 likely candidates are bein<r interviewed by the board in Dunedin, and satisfaction with the type of recruit was expressed by Flight-lieuten-ant M'Arthur to-day. Indeed, he expressed! very great satsfaction with the -general type of recruit coming forward everywhere in the Dominion, and the percentage of rejections by the board has been extremely small, and has applied only to those whom the board has been quite satisfied would not make suitable pilots, observers', or gunners. The response from the young men of the country to enlist with the Air Force was stated.' by Flight-lieutenant M’Arthur to be excellent. Medical examination follows the board’s interviewing, and it is as a result of this examination that the applicants are thinned down, for approximately 25 per cent, cannot pass the very rigid examination.