COULD NOT READ

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21551, 2 November 1944, Page 3

COULD NOT READ

SOLDIER AGED 24 APPEAL BY PARENTS (P.A.) AUCKLAND. Nov. 1. The fact that a soldier, aged 24, at present home on furlough after 19 months' active service with the Third Division in the Pacific, could not read or \vi ite. was disclosed at a sitting of the No. 1 Armed Forcer. Appeal Board. An appeal against the soldier being moLil.e.ed for further service overseas was lodged by his parents on the grounds that such service would seriously jeopardise his chances of overcoming his educational deficiencies. In evidence the soldier's father, a veteran of the last war and Boer War. said his son after training with tire Territorials volunteered for the Expeditionary Force on attaining 21 and had served in Fiji and New Caledonia, where lie was a dispatch rider on Vella Lavella and Treasury Islands. Me returned to New Zealand in July and his furlough would expire on November V.

Both the principal of the Seddon Memorial Technical College. G. J. Park, and A. B. Thompson, lecturer in education at the Auckland University College, had expressed amazement that his son had been allowed to undertake service overseas despite his illiteracy, continued the witness. They suggested that the reservist should be given special vocational training.

The witness said that continued ill- | nesses in his early life and family i circumstances during the depression ' had interfered with the boy's educaI ticn. Before the war lie had taken a special course in reading and writing under Bryan Knight, psychologist. In addition to attending night classes at the technical college, he was a steel metal worker by trade and his employers stated that although he was illiterate he showed unusual ability with his hands. “My son is not anxious to leave the army with prospects of European service ahead," added the witness, “but we feel he should be allowed to take special tuition while he is still young so that he will not have to face life with a growing inferiority complex. He does not want any repatriation or rehabilitation aid.”

The case was referred to the director of mobilisation for his decision.