TERRITORIALS HAVE CHANCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 24 January 1942, Page 4

TERRITORIALS HAVE CHANCE

SERVICE IN AIR FORCE WILL BE ABLE TO TRANSFER Wellington, This Day. Territorials who have applied lor service in the air force and who have since been mobilised, will not be prevented from transferring to the air force, according to Squadron Leader A. C. McArthur, chairman of the Air Force Selection Committee which yesterday finished a two-day sitting in Wellington. The other member of the committee was Mr L. Lidgard, educational officer. During the sitting the committee interviewed more than 80 applicants for the air force, very few of whom were unsatisfactory. There was no definite arrangement yet between the army and the air force about the mobilised territorials, Squadron Leader McArthur stated, but every territorial would be given a chance of enlisting in the air force. Balloted men were always given the opportunity of so enlisting, he added. Yesterday the committee interviewed its first group of men from those drawn in the married men’s call-up this week. “Volunteering for the air force has been quite satisfactory to date,” Squadron Leader McArthur said. “We have sufficient applications for present requirements, but a constant stream is necessary to make up for the big number of men passing out from training stations. Pilots were wanted chiefly, he said. About five or six pilots were needed to each gunner or observer. Yesterday the board interviewed one member of the Air Training Corps. Members of the corps have also been interviewed in Hamilton and Auckland, but the full effect of the corps will not be felt till the end of this year. In the past it had been usual for men called in territorial ballots to do their three months’ collective training, and enlist in the air force when they had finished that, but balloted men who intended applying for the air force were now generally doing so straight away, because there was no longer any limit on the time to be spent in military service. The next pre-entry educational course will begin at the Wellington Technical College and the Hutt Valley High School next week.—P.A.