TERRITORIAL CAMP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20186, 2 March 1940, Page 6

TERRITORIAL CAMP

P.B. DRAFT DEPARTS LARGEST SINCE 1931 INTENSIVE TRAINING Territorial trainees of the Headquarters Wing and B Company, Hawke’s Bay Regiment, left Gisborne at 2 o’clock this morning en route to Waio ( uru, whei*e they will spend a week in camp undergoing intensive training. The draft comprised two officers and 87 other ranks, and was the largest group of territorials sent to camp from Gisborne at any time since the volunteer system was substituted for compulsory military training. The territorials were under the command of Lieutenant L. G. Williams, with Lieutenant H. Cooper as second-in-command. They were to connect with railcars at Wairoa at 5.35 a.m., and to transfer to a special troop-train at Napier, reaching Waiouru at 6.30 o’clock this evening. Large numbers of territorials from Hawke’s Bay were to join them en route. Value of Field Training The importance of field training, such as is possible at Waiouru, has been emphasised by the experience gained in the handling of recruits for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The Main Body and early reinforcements of the N.Z.E.F. in the Great War contained a high percentage of men who had been trained under the compulsory system, and who had taken part in annual encampments as territorials, benefiting considerably from the intensive training received there, and bringing to their active-service careers a degree of sbldierliness which only the most advanced of present-day territorials can match. Many of those now training in defence units are likely to proceed on active service, in their turn, within the next year, and it is likely that the training now made possible by the enlargement of expenditure on territorial work will bear fruit then.