Sodden Ground Stops Army Manoeuvres

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 48, 26 February 1943, Page 5

Sodden Ground Stops Army Manoeuvres

Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Feb. 25. Large-scale exercises involving all arms of a division of the New Zealand forces over a wide area of the central and western portion of the North Island have been postponed for a few weeks becauso of the heavy rain which has ymde the ground sodden. The decision to postpone the exercises, an Army authority states, has been made entirely in the interests of civilian property, and not because of the discomforts which might have ensued for the soldiers engaged, who, he said, were prepared to fight in any weather the country could produce. They had spent months on careful planning and preparation and had been well trained in the role they were to undertake, an! consequently were disappointed at tho postponement. However, as tho exercises would involve the movement of tanks, tank transports, trucks, and other heavy vehicles, the Army could have got through only at heavy cost to roads.