NAVAL RATINGS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22922, 28 December 1937, Page 10

NAVAL RATINGS

SPECIAL TRAINING COURSE EARLY RETURN TO DOMINION [from our own correspondent] LONDON, Dep. 8 The fir.it of tho New Zealand naval ratings who were sent to England for a three-vcar training course in the Royal Navy are to return to the Dominion early next year. Since 1934 groups of 30 have been sent every vear to take this course, which enables them to secure experience aboard warships, destroyers anil submarines, according to their qualification. In recent months several New Zoalanders have been in British battleships in Spanish waters, where they watcned incidents in the civil war. Several of the 30 to return to New Zealand next year are still abroad, and will sail from their stations for the Dominion without returning to England. Tho main group of about 20, however, will arrive in New Zealand early in March by the Rangitata. Admiralty officials state that the decision to suspend the permanent transfer of trained men from the Royal Navy to Dominion navies will have very little effect as far as New Zealand is concerned. Only about half a dozen ratings apply for such transfers to the Dominion in most years, and arrangements for the loan of men for service in New Zealand will in no way be affected.

Transfers will still be granted " on compassionate grounds of an exceptional nature." An example given was where a wife had been obliged to live in New Zealand for health reasons.