WORK AT WAIOURU.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 211, 5 August 1940, Page 6

WORK AT WAIOURU.

CAMP TAKING SHAPE. 25,000 TONS OF MATERIAL. AUCKLAND, Aug. 4. Living far more hardily than the troops who succeed them will have to live, about 800 workmen are making rapid progress with the reconstruction of the Waiouru military camp, shortly to he used for the intensive training of some of the home defence units. They enjoy nothing like the comfort they are providing for tho soldiers, and often work in the bitterest of weather. Situated by road one and a half miles east of the Waiouru railway station on the Main Trunk, the camp area embraces about 70 acres, on which seven battalion areas are being prepared. The magnitude of the task is shown by the fact that since June 20 about 25,000 tons of material for the camp ha J. been handled at the railway station, an average of about SOO tons a day. BAIT ALTON AREA BUILDINGS. One of the battalion areas will include the following units: Twenty-one men’s dormitory buildings, one officers’ dormitory, one sergeant’s dormitory, two men’s messes, one building containing an officers.’ and a sergeants’ mess in different wings, five company stores, a battalion store, ration store, fuel store, laundry, drying-room, boiler-room, showers and an orderly room. Tlie area will also include a parade ground. This battalion area will he complete in every respect, while tho six remaining areas will have the service buildings erected, but will not include dormitories for either officers or men, tents being used instead. The workmen now on the job are also living iu tents or in the partially completed troops’ dormitories. TWENTY HOURS A DAY. Bulldozers, tractors, carry-alls, graders, mechanical shovels and a fleet of motor-lorries work 20 hours a day on the gigantic task of getting the camp ready for occupation. The main work is in levelling the parade grounds, building sites and roads. All the roads are to be sealed. Included in tlie plans for the camp are recreational buildings of the usual type, for which five acres has been reserved. A modern water supply firefighting equipment and a sewage system, as for a thoroughly up-to-date town, are being installed, and when the scheme'' is in full operation there will be an electric plant producing 540 kilowatts generated by a Diesel engine.