A CAMP DE LUXE

Evening Star, Issue 23727, 7 November 1940, Page 12

A CAMP DE LUXE

AMENITIES OF TOWN VISIT TO WAIOURU The most modern of New Zealand’s military camps is near completion at Waiouru. Half a mile square, it is set in the lee of the hills and enjoys the bracing atmosphere of Mount Ruapehu, 15 miles distant (says the ‘ Dominion ’). On completion its capacity will be almost double that of Trentham and Fapakura combined, with ample room for enlargement on areas set apart for the purpose. When the finishing touches have been added to what is already done, more than 7,000 men will be accommodated, fed, and given recreation with ease. There will, indeed, be no difficulty in taking up to 10,000. Established in lonely country as it is, there will be no lack of comfort. There is a 100-bed hospital, a picture theatre is being erected to seat 850 and a Y.M.C.A. building, now almost finished, will be the largest of its kind in New Zealand. There is a post and telegraph office and savings bank and, in course of construction, a special branch railway line, which will have a I,oooft platform to take a doubleengined full train. There are at present about 200 buildings in the camp. The camp is no haphazard construction. It is planned to a set scale almost a* a model township would be under a town-planning scheme. Buildings which were erected there at the start of the war have been shifted to bring them into line with the general scheme. The roads will total six and a-half miles. They will be paved and 25ft from kerb to kerb, a foot wider than the average mam highway. Two roads in the camp will have double lanes, each of 25ft, with a 30ft central lane set apart as a “ lung ” to he planted with shrubs and grass. Giant plants are already generating the electric power for the camp. The water supply comes from a speciallyconstructed dam in the hills. There is modern sewerage for all purposes. The trains will deposit the troops at the camp station 200yds from the camp itself and deliver supplies of food and equipment straight into the stores from u special siding. A loop line is being constructed which will give trains from north or south a clear run in and out without any shunting or changing of engines. Roads leading to the camp ere being straightened and made fitter and safer for both military and civilian traffic. The seven battalion areas will each take 192 tents, more if need be, or a grand total of 1,3-14 The tents will take comfortably six men apiece. There is reserve land prepared for five more areas. The areas are in squares, each completely _ self-contained. The permanent buildings form the outsides of the squares; inside there is the area for the tents and inside that the parade ground protected bv buildings' and tents from the winds. The grounds, in common with the rest of the camp, are to be tar-sealed.

HOT AND COLD WATER.' For the first time in a New Zealand military camp all ranks will have hot and cold water at the ablution benches where the soldier has his shave and first wash of the day. There are special laundries and drying rooms in each area. A small army of workmen has been at this job night and day for months. In darkness and daylight great ma- • chines have been operated to level this a red of half a mile square. A 60-hour week has been worked, with a long week-end break once a month. The men have worked, fed, slept, and been provided with recreation on the job. Good wages have been made, but by dint of long hours. The fruit and vegetable room will take vegetables by the ton for a camp that will probably go through more than three tons of potatoes and three ' tons of green vegetables a day. Each man is entitled to three-quarters of a pound of vegetables a day. MAMMOTH PROVISIONING, The ration store resembles a big city provision warehouse. It is in the process of being stocked up. Yesterday there were 150 cases of five different kinds of dried fruits, bottles of sauce, jars of chutneys and pickles, and tins of fish, vegetables, and fruit by the hundreds. The men will not go short of tea; yesterday there were 10,0001 b of it in the store in 100 1001 b chests. There were also among the larger quantities 100 cases each of sultanas and currants, 400 cases of jams, and many sacks of beans. Fifteen tons of sugar, 4J tons-of rice, and sacks of New Zea-land-made wheaten cornflower were there, too. Medical comforts have not been overlooked in this mammoth stocking. There are calvesfoot jellies, tonic foods, and drinks by the dozen. The men are to be fed on a money value of Is fid a day each. There will be a planned diet. A week in advance quartermasters of units will be required to submit to the supply officer

their diet sheets, prepared on a basis of nutritive value. These sheets have also to be approved by the unit medical officer and a copy is also sent to the Army Headquarters at Wellington where the Director-General of Medical Services will check on whether or not the diet is a correct one.

To complete the scheme, : there have been 30,000 trees—pinus insignis, murrayana, lawsonia, and baltic pines—■ planted in 14 rows to form a shelter belt round the entire camp. The main supply store, 270 ft long, alongside which a railway siding will rim, is one of the features of the camp. From the soldiers’ viewpoint it is most important, for here will be stored all the food. There are freezing chambers for meat, butter and milk, with the refrigeration clone by electric machinery.. The meat freezer will take 10 tons of meat. Rails will slide the carcasses right from insulated wagons on the siding into the chamber. Insulation materials for these chambers came from the wrecked steamer Port Bowen. There arc steam sterilizers for milk cans. The camp lias 80 12-gallon, cans of its own, specially branded, but all suppliers’ cans also will bo sterilized before return to the supplier’s. The main butchery has a power-driven mincer and hero meat will be boned and jointed and made ready for the ovens. This will save time in the cookhouses and eliminate waste in cutting. There is a brine and pickling room for small goods; up to 3,000 pounds of meat can be pickled at a time. There is also special equipment for making brawn and sausages. Electrieallv-drivou choppers enclosed in a machine will cut moat to required sizes. There is an officer in charge of supply and transport Captain S. Mellows, now at the camp arranging this supply provisioning, and when the camp is in full operation there will also be assistant camp supply and transport officers. SELF-CONTAINED AREAS.

The permanent buildings - for the outer of the battalion squares are tiro boiler house, laundry, showers, and drying room block, the ablution stands and conveniences block (one on two

sides of the square), officers and n.c.o.’s cubicles, showers, bathrooms, and conveniences block, ordnance depot, company stores (five), battalion store, men’s mess block (kitchen, two messrooms, vegetable store, pantry, serveries, and other offices), fuel store and officers’ and n.c.o.’s mess block with similar accommodation to the men’s mess block. These mess blocks are in the form of three sides of a rectangle. The messrooms (men’s) will each seat 450, and take up the two sides of the rectangle. At the built end of the rectangle is the kitchen block with the serveries, adjacent to the mess-rooms and connected by long slides. Part of the kitchen equipment in each area will be an electric potato peeler.