NEW ZEALAND FORCES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 23 December 1942, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND FORCES

PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS IN HAND (By Official Air Mail) (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.) Somewhere in the Pacific, Dec. 14. When New Zealand families sit down on Christmas Day for their traditional noon-day feast, their menfolk in the Pacific, land, air and sea forces, will be trying hard to do the same. It will not be easy but special arrangements now in hand will ensure that the seasonal spirit will be with them at least in part. Christmas tradition dies hard under the most adverse circumstances. Air crews of R.N.Z.A.F. squadrons will toast one another with lukewarm fruit juice as their bombers roar over island coasts and waters. There will be little celebrations on minesweepers rising and falling on the Pacific swell. Among many an isolated group of New Zealanders there will be only the thoughts and wishes spoken and left unsaid to distinguish the occasion from any other day of war.

On land everything possible is being done to mark in an adequate way the fourth Christmas of the war. At this and other Pacific bases where New Zealand forces draw their rations from Americans, it is hoped that turkeys will be available. Plum puddings are to be pooled from patriotic parcels which each man is expected to receive before Christmas, and unit canteens are endeavouring to build up a reserve of beer and cordials for the day. A grant of 2s a head which is being made will probably be devoted largely to this, since there is little else on which it can be spent. Army cooks will vie with one another in making it a memorable eating day, and officers will dine with the men in mess halls and tents decorated with greenery and wild flowers. That will be the probable extent of the most elaborate of Christmas celebrations.