BRITISH ARMY MORALS

Grey River Argus, 27 August 1946, Page 5

BRITISH ARMY MORALS

ON THE RHINE CAMPAIGN, TO RAISE THEM LONDON, August 23. “A return to morality” campaign and a curb on drinking are among the aims in the tightening up of discipline in the British Army of Occupation on the Rhine, a high military authority told Reuter’s correspondent in Herford. The authority, citing causes for falling discipline, said that 1946 had beeen a difficult year. “There have been many changes- in the British Army of Occupation on the Rhine and small abuses have crept in,” he said. “There has been too much drinking in officers’ clubs. There is a great deal of cheap German gin, and a minority of members' of the British Army of Occupation on the Rhine have let us down. I am hopeful that the arrival of families will raise the standard of morals.” He added that troops wishing to marry German girls will be compelled to have a six months’ engagement, because “it would be unfair to the soldiers who have brought in wives from England for new German wives to have the same facilities.” The military authority pointed out that in some parts' of the British zone there are six women to every nwn. “There is a great temptation for German women to go to England because life is very difficult for them here.” The General Officer’ Commanding Northern Command, General Christison, has pay, sick, and leave parades. “They are petty nuisances and irking to the modern soldier,” he said. Soldiers and ATS girls will in future have their pay handed to them by n.c.o.’s instead of lining up and saluting an officer before and after getting their money. Army doctors are adopting surgery hours and letting the officers and rankers make their own appointments. Men and women living in barracks are also allowed to invite their friends to visit them for tea. FOSTER BABIES NOT WANTED LONDON, Aug. 25. German foster-parents are bartering babies for as little as a pound of coffee, reports Reuter’s correspondent at Herford. The babies are those which the Nazis kidnapped from over-run European countries. A welfare worker* at U.N.R.R.A.’s child sanctuary at Auermuchle, North Germany, said that many German foster-mothers had grown weary of the Nazi-imuosed responsibility. The majority of the adopted children are in a low state of health. After they are nursed back to health they will be repatriated.

GERMAN MINESWEEPERS TO GO FISHING. LONDON, Aug. 25. To augment the German fishing fleet and help to relive the food problems in the British zone of Germany, Britain has returned to Germany without payment as an act of grace 147 minesweepers received from the German fleet under the Potsdam agreement,' says an official announcement made at Herford.