Fraser Makes Presentations To N.Z. Unit

Northern Advocate, 9 November 1939, Page 6

Fraser Makes Presentations To N.Z. Unit

(Received 1 p.m.) LONDON, November 8. “Tiie Government and people of New Zealand are greatly moved by your action. Everything will be done to assist you in the task you have undertaken.” Mr. Fraser said this yesterday when addressing members of the New Zealand Anti-tank Unit in camp “somewhere in England” at the conclusion of an all-day tour by the Empire Ministers of military establishments. "We in New Zealand appreciate that many of you have sacrificed your careers in England in order to join the first Dominion unit training in England,” Mr. Fraser said. x Blazing New Trail. “All day long I have seen men parading and training. “I am convinced there is nothing better than you lads in the British Army ot elsewhere.” The High Commissioner (Mr. Jordan) told the members of the unit that they were blazers of a new trail and were taking up the task of preserving New Zealand’s name established by their predecessors a generation ,ago.

Mr, Fraser presented each member of the unit with copies of the New Testament from the New Zealand Y.M.C.A., Containing a message from the King, also a wallet embossed with a kiwi from New Zealanders in London.

Quickest to Learn. Members of the Empire delegation earlier closely inspected units of work. One of the sergeant-instructors, loaned from the British Army, told Mr, Fraser that the unit was the quickest to learn in his experience. Mr. Fraser was very interested in the modern barracks in which the unit is quartered, especially the bathrooms and sleeping quarters, in which were beds and wire mattresses, contrasting with the last war’s palliasses. Each hut is named after a New Zealand tree, such as kauri, rimu, etc. The walls of the recreation huts are adorned with New Zealand scenes. See Modem Equipment. The Empire delegates spent the day inspecting Britain’s ~ most modern equipment and training methods. Mr! R. G. Casey, Australia, was greatly interested in the revolutionary extent of mechanisation, which is of peculiar interest to Australia. The delegates were given a demonstration of the immense power of, the infantry, and watched a mock battle staged on a stretch of heatherland, where Highlanders advanced with Bren guns with which they smothered targets 500. yards away. . In the middle of the demonstration, a mock gas alarm was given. Within a, few seconds the men, now 'equipped with gas masks, had resumed their blaze of deadly fire.