ASSISTANCE REFUSED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22572, 27 February 1948, Page 3

ASSISTANCE REFUSED

YOUNG BRITISH SEAMAN EXPERIENCES DURING WAR MELBOURNE, . an. 26. On September 15, 1939, a 19-year-old seaman was torpedoed while' on a tanker on its way to England. Rescued, he joined another, but was torpedoed soon afterwards in the Bay of Biscay. Boarding a third tanker, he was torpedoed in the Mediterranean. He then gave no the sea and joined the British Army. But after 70 days’ service his nerve broke, and he was invalided out. He went back to sea. The tanker he chose reached “Bomo Alley” only to be bombed and sunk from the air. He escaped for the fourtn time. He served the rest of the war on tankers in the Asiatic theatre. Now here’s the point: This man is not eligible for reconstruction training in Australia. Yet a man who entered Jervis Bay Naval College at the j. eginning of last year is eligible under the training scheme to do a subsidised medical course. The deputy director for Victoria ol re-establishment, Brigadier Lawrence, quoted these examples today when he addressed the Ex-Servicemen’s Legion conference to show that some anomalies still occurred under Commonwealth legislation. These, he said, were being ironed out gradually. Re-esmblishrnent benefits were not a reward for service, he said, but departmental officers were trying to cure anomalies such as the one he had quoted. ■