AIRMEN’S FUTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25737, 8 January 1945, Page 2

AIRMEN’S FUTURE

ARMY SERVICE LIKELY VAGUENESS OF POSITION It is generally believed that many of the New Zealand airmen who have been returned from Canada following the closing of the Empire air training scheme will be transferred to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force pool. If this is done (says the New Zealand Herald) they will become available, subject to the usual eligibility, for overseas reinforcement drafts. When a large party of the airmen reached Auckland on New Year’s Day, the Minister of Defence, Mr Jones, said there would be work for some of them overseas, but to what extent they would be employed in New. Zealand or the Pacific he could not then tell them. But, although the Minister thus gave the men no specific information on the point which interests them most—their service future—the probability of numbers of the men being transferred to the army has been freely discussed for some time. If this step is taken, New Zealand will follow the example already set by Britain and the United States, where excess air personnel resulting from the low casualty rate since the European invasion, for which tremendous reserves had been created, have been made available to other services, particularly the army. The New Zealand airmen who have returned from Canada are by no means satisfied with the vagueness of the information obtainable. Some are already exploring the chances of being transferred to the Expeditionary Force. They prefer to take this step themselves instead of waiting for an official declaration of policy. . Also intensely interested in the future of air force training, and beginning to despair of being told exactly what it will be, are numbers of young men who have enlisted in this service at various times in the past, but have, not yet been required to present themselves for training. Numbers of these are also inquiring into the chance of going into camp with Expeditionary Force reinforcements. These young men feel their position very keenly because, through circumstances over which they had no control manv of their friends of the same age’ are already in the thick of action overseas. They and the men who have returned from Canada do not appreciate being left so completely in the dark.