DUAL PURPOSE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3184, 19 October 1942, Page 6

DUAL PURPOSE

ARMY HELP TO KILL GOATS OPERATIONS ON RANGES TRAINING AND SAVING FOREST The announcemeiit by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Parry, that selected men from the Army, working with experts are to lend a hand in the destruction of deer in New Zealand forest areas, especially on the Coromandel range, has immediately raised the question in other parts of New Zealand whether similar arrangements could not be made to deal with the serious goat menace to the bush, states the Taranaki Herald.

A Press Association message from Wellington stated the Minister had announced an agreement between the Army authorities and the Internal Affairs Department on this matter, and Mr Parry said the Army men should, in such operations, gain wonderful experience in bush warfare.

If any such manoeuvres were undertaken they would not be altogether an innovation. If not for the destruction of forest animal pests, bush fighting training manoeuvres have been planned and undertaken in the Northern Military Command. The forces, which are considerable,

were to leave their usual training* areas and go to the Thames Valley and Waikato districts.

If circumstances permit plans to* be carried out, the training will last, at least for some weeks. It promises to be the hardest training many of the men have received, and will take them from the elementary to theadvanced stages of bush fighting. It will include nights spent in the bush and possibly periods when the men. cannot rely upon usual rations but. will have to live on the food they take with them.

While these are only highlights of what may be expected, the period spent in the Waikato and Thames Valley areas promise to provide the force with exactly the type of graining which it must have and which its officers have been anxious to give it.

The training will undoubtedly include at least one large-scale exercise, possibly over the high ranges behind Te Aroha and Matamata. A “war” of extraordinary value to all officers and men will be staged over country as tough as anywhere in New Zealand, probably in the Pacific.