RECRUITS BEGIN A NEW LIFE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27385, 10 May 1950, Page 8

RECRUITS BEGIN A NEW LIFE

Civilian Suits To Battledress A new life began yesterday afternoon for 115 youths from the Dunedin military area when they paraded at the Railway Station under the supervision of an army draft conducting officer and boarded a special train which was to take them to Burnham Military Camp in company with other 18-year-olds from north and south of Dunedin.

Their new life will last for 14 weeks, and during that time they will change their civilian clothes for army wear, their late rising habits for a 6 a.m. start, their civilian “ bosses ” for officers and nco's with what will appear to them to be absolute authority, and their every-day working equipment for web gear, rifles, bayonets, gas masks and other army paraphernalia. And not the least part of the change for them will be regimentation and a curtailment of civilian freedom. The 18-year-olds from Dunedin joined 129 trainees from the south on the train, which left Dunedin at 12.20

p.m. The' train picked up additional recruits at stations between Dunedin and the camp, so that a total of 342 trainees arrived at Burnham last night. Lieutenant R. J. Healy, RNZA. was draft conducting officer. The recruits left Dunedin with mixed feelings. Most of them were looking forward to the spell in camp as a new sort of extended holiday, but others grudged the time away from studies or lucrative jobs. The draft was sent off by a crowd of relatives, and the scene was strongly reminiscent of the departure for camp of members of the earlier echelons of the 2nd NZEF. These soldiers, 4 too, left the Dunedin Station in civilian clothes.