DEFENCE LAUNCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26853, 18 August 1948, Page 4

DEFENCE LAUNCH

NAVAL RESERVE TRAINING BASED AT DUNEDIN For practical seamen’s training, a Seaward Defence M.L. will soon be acquired by the Otago Division of the Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve, which has called for applications from former R.N.V.R. and hostilities only personnel for enrolment in the division. These efficient little ships; which were used by the navy for harbour defence purposes during the war, have been allotted to. each of the divisions in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. The commanding officer of the Otago Division, Commander A. C. Swanson, told the . Daily Times yesterday that tbe recruiting had 'just been started and, at the present stage, he .could not give details of the division’s training programme. The S.D.M.L. would be based permanently at Dunedin.’ The announcement that enrolments . will be made in Dunedin is the first step towards the re-establishment of naval reserve training, the object being first to establish a nucleus of petty officers and leading hands. The headquarters in St. Andrew street have been re-opened, and Petty Officer W A. Lake has been appointed as permanent instructor to tne division. Full information about the recruiting campaign is available at the division’s headquarters. In a few weeks it is intended to enlist ratings to bring the division up to half of its full strength of 180, after which, the training programme will be commenced. Petty Officer Lake, who belongs to Dunedin, joined the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy in 1931 and had his initial training in H.M S. Philomel. He Was on loan to the Royal Navy from 1936 to 1939 and served in the Mediterranean. In the Second World War, Petty- Officer Lake served with H.M.N.Z.S. Leander and H.M.N.Z.S. Achilles and in 1945 he attended the gunnery school at H.M.A.S. Cerberus, in Australia.