COMFORTS FOR TROOPS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25457, 11 February 1944, Page 2

COMFORTS FOR TROOPS

FRONT-LINE SERVICE PARCELS ARRIVE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 10. “There is no other army which receives the front-line services our troops get,” said Lieutenant-colonel F. Waite, commissioner for the National Patriotic Fund Board in the Middle East, in an interview this afternoon. Colonel Waite, who has been absent from New Zealand since the middle of 1940, has returned with the furlough draft. He is a member of the Legislative Council, and after spending a few days in Balclutha intends returning to Wellington for the opening of Parliament. During December Lieutenant-colonel Waite was in Italy. It was one of the

romances of the war, he said, that parcels for the New Zealand forces packed by people from the small villages to the main cities of the Dominion arrived safely in the Middle East and then got through the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean right up the Adriatic to Bari to be delivered finally to the troops in the area of the Sangro River four days before Christmas. It would be sufficient thanks to the people who were responsible for these patriotic parcels if they were able to see the pleasure they gave to men 10,000 miles away from home. Referring to the services provided for the New Zealand troops, Colonel Waite said that the mobile canteens operated by the Y.M.C.A. and the Church Army on behalf of the Patriotic Board worked up with the brigades right in the front line, giving them a free tea service. He said that the New Zealanders were also the first troops in Italy to have a Forces’ Club established in such a forward position as Bari. ' Provision for meals and accommodation was made at the club for men on leave from the division. When he left, 200 men were coming down from the line to the club.

“ Having been in • Italy fairly recently,” Colonel Waite added, “ I can assure relatives that the New Zealand Division is in very good heart.”