CLASS 3 MEN

Southland Times, Issue 24182, 19 July 1940, Page 8

CLASS 3 MEN

To The Editor Sir, —Now that we are getting near to the introduction of conscription, I wonder just what is going to be the position of those who have joined up in the home defence section and have been drafted into the various. classes— I, If or 111. Classes I and 11, we know, have been called up or perhaps have been notified that they are to begin training, but Class 111, we have been informed, are not to have any training at all. Being too old for Classes I and II and having been brought up in an ineffective area as far as military training was concerned I had been placed in Class 111. Now, after having been classed in that section for more than a year, we are told that Class 111 is to have no training. Does that mean that we have sent in our names simply for the fun of doing it, and do we come under conscription too? Even though I may have had just on 20 years’ heavy truck driving and also a good many years’ deerstalking, that apparently does not count from a military point of view and I have to be content just to remain a member of the home defence section, though on paper. If we had been told sooner that Class 111 was to have no training, perhaps we could have joined up as territorials and then we would have felt we were at least trying to do something for the defence of this deal - country of ours—New Zealand. There are many in the same position that I am in, so I trust that the situation will be made clear. But believe me, conscription or not, these men will all be willing to do their bit and do it wholeheartedly.—Yours, etc., CLASS 111. July 15, 1940.

[The Minister of Defence (the Hon. F. Jones) in a statement published this ■ week, said: “Classes I and 111 of the : National Military Reserve are liable for i home service, and any single men in | these classes are also liable to be called ' in any 'ballot for the Territorial or Expeditionary Force. Men in these classes of the reserve may, if they so desire, volunteer up to July 22 for service at home or abroad, whichever the Government may require, provided they are within the age group specified and have not more than two children.’ Yesterday it was announced in a message from Auckland that the use of Class 111 men had been authorized for the completion of fortress battalions.]