In the News

Southland Times, Issue 24648, 21 January 1942, Page 4

In the News

Few Appeals Granted

Of the 72 appeals against mobilization dealt with last week-end by the Auckland Man-Power Committee, 60 were either dismissed or withdrawn. Several appeals concerned members of the National Military Reserve and most of these were dismissed. In the case of reservists conducting one-man businesses, however, a short time before reporting for service was allowed to give the appellant time to wind up his affairs. Appeals were successful only in cases where the men concerned were engaged on important war work. The committee will continue its sittings throughout the week. Presentation to Warship

A korowai mat and greenstone mere have been presented to one of his Majesty’s ships serving on the New Zealand station by Mr Hallyburton Johnstone, of Auckland. The mat, which is the ceremonial dress of a chief, was obtained by Mr Johnstone about 40 years ago from a Waikato chief, who told him it was more than 100 years old. Dressings for Home Guard Members of the New Plymouth Red Cross Society have been busily engaged in making field dressings for the local Home Guard and are already over halfway through the quota of 2300 for which they were asked. The society has 600 dressings packed in tins for sterilizing and another 800 were to be packed provided enough tins were available. Women In Railways Staff depletions at the Christi church railway district offices caused by military demands have been met by the employment of women. Problems arising from the loss of experienced men may be further accentuated by mobilization this month. It was stated this' week that women formed slightly more than 23 per cent, of the total staff at the district offices, which, except that a few women typists had been employed for some years, compared with a pre-war position

in which there were virtually no women. Friendly Italians

“The Italians are quite friendly and don’t seem to want to fight,” runs a letter from a New Zealand soldier. “A couple of hundred of them came in the other morning, and we said to them: ‘How is Mussolini?’ I was surprised when one of them answered in Americanized speech: ‘He is safe and sound in Rome.’ I asked him where he had learned to speak English, and he said he was a truck driver in the United States. He had come to see his sister in Rome in 1939 and had been called up to fight.

“I asked him what he thought of the war, and he answered: “Mussolini and Hitler think they will win the war, but they won’t. They don’t realize that the English are tough. America is a great country and I want to go back.’ At this juncture he was marched away, but I’m sure he would have liked to have spoken a bit longer.” “Tobruk Rat” Medals Captain Stanley Goulston, a Sydney doctor who is a medical officer in the Australian Forces overseas, has been presented by men of his battalion with one of the famous “Tobruk rat” medals. These medals were made by members of the A.I.F. during the siege of Tobruk from shell casings and other metal scraps and awarded to colleagues they thought worthy of them. Captain Goulston received his because during the six months and a-half he was with his battalion in Tobruk he did not lose a case through illness. The Australian troops decided to make the medals following broadcasts from Berlin by the English renegade Lord Haw Haw in which he described them as “the rats of Tobruk—Germany’s self-supporting prisoners of war.” Inscribed upon the strips of bronze and brass that take the place of the silk which attaches to the general run of medals are the words “Presented by Lord Haw Haw to the Tobruk Rats, 1941.” The medal proper is triangular in shape, resembling an A.I.F. colour patch. A brass rat is the centra! figure. “Electron” Bomb Details of the German fire bomb, described as “one of the most, if not the most efficient bomb ever devised,” have just been disclosed by the United States Chemical Warfare Service. It is known as the “electron bomb.” The one kilogram electron bomb makes use of its thick-walled 80 per cent, magnesium shell to spread its fire. This shell is approximately nine inches in length and two inches in diameter. It contains several ounces of a thermite mixture. Unlike the thermite type of incendiary bombs used during the World War I, however, this thermite serves only to ignite the magnesium shell. It is not itself the main incendiary material. Shot a Shark Wading up to his waist in the sea, Sergeant Hawkins, of Albert Park police station, Melbourne, shot a nine-foot grey shark with a revolver as it came toward him

about 100 yards from the shore at Albert Park. Another shark, seen near by, disappeared. The sharks cruised along not far from five children who were bathing. The children were warned, and Ser-

geant Hawkins and Constable Crawford went to the beach with revolvers. Wearing waders lent by a fisherman, Sergeant Hawkins stalked the nearer shark, which was the smaller. “It came lazily toward me,” he said, “and made a good target. I hit it with my first shot, and then, as it threshed the sea violently I fired five more shots into it.” Guardsmen and a Bull

A hurried retreat before the charge of an angry bull was made by two Stratford Home Guards, one of whom plunged through a stream to reach safety on the other bank. The incident occurred' when the intelligence section of the Stratford Battalion of the Home Guard was engaged upon a reconnaissance. The officer in charge and another member explored the banks of the Manganui Stream. They reached a paddock which bordered the stream and encountered a bull. Nothing daunted, the two went on. The officer took the lead and began to advance in front of the animal while the other guard remained in a strong-point enfilading the enemy’s flank. Lowering his head, the bull began a rapid advance. It was then the other guard revealed his presence and shouted a warning to his officer. With a remarkable turn of speed the bull made a sudden right-wheel and charged straight down a bank towards this man. The guard immediately retired to safety. Making the most of the bull’s preoccupation elsewhere, the officer hurriedly withdrew to safety behind the barbed-wire fence of the next paddock.