PREVIOUS RECRUITING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4186, 15 September 1939, Page 5

PREVIOUS RECRUITING

GREAT EFFORT FOR LAST WIAR. USE OF BALLOT APPROVED. It took New Zealand 11 days tc raise and dispatch its first expeditionary force in the Great War. On August 15th a force of 1410 men left tc capture German Samoa. Two month;later almost to a day, on October 16th ; after waiting for transport, 360 officers and 8139 men—the Maih Body--embarked for what they expected to be Europe, but which became Egypt and Gallipoli. Their first major opera ticn was the landing on Gallipoli on April 25th, 1915. For the remainder of the war the Dominion continued to send a stream of reinforcements. Of a total population in 1914 of barely 1,100,000, a. 3 many as 124,211 were called up for active service in the war at home and abroad. Of this total, almost 92,000 were volunteers.

The number called up for foreign service was 117,175, and of them 100,444 actually went overseas. This number included 550 nurses and 2227 Maoris and Rarotongans, but it did not include 2091 New Zealanders who joined the Australian and 1279 who joined the British Forc'es.

TERRITORIAL BASIS. Fully 11 per cent, of the total population was mobilised and between 9 and 10 per cent, went on overseas service. Total casualties in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, which includes reinforcements, exceeded 58,000, among which deaths on active service numbered between 16,000 and 17,000. The recorded number of New Zealanders who were taken prisoners of war was not more than 356. From 4000 to 5000 military honours were awarded, including nine Victoria Crosses and 17 D.S.O.’s. In 1914 New Zealand’s defence forces were modelled on a territorial basis, embodying the principles of universal service between certain ages. In July, 1914, the territorials numbered 29,447, with a staff corps and permanent staff totalling 311. To raise the Samoan contingent and the Main Body, the voluntary principle was strictly adhered to, though married men were not encouraged to enlist, and for the first two years of the war the volunteer system more than sufficed for all requirements.

CHANGE TO COMPULSION. It would probably have continued to do so, but public opinion of its unfairness and the necessity for conserving the interests of essential industries within the Dominion led to the ballot system. On August 1, 1936, the Military Service Act was passed, involving enlistment of all males between the ages of 20 and 45. The eligible men resulting were divided into two divisions, the first consisting of unmarried men, those who had been married after May 1, 1916, and widowers with no children. The Act provided for calling up by public ballot as men were required, though voluntary enlistments were still accepted, and many men so offered themselves. When the Main Body was formed every one of the four military districts of the Dominion, Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago, provided one infantry battalion of about 1000 strong and one regiment of mounted rifles of about 550 each. After that there was no break in the continuity of reinforcements right to the end of the war.

The grouping of ages in the 1936 census returns does not enable an exact number of single men between the ages of 21 and 35 years to be given. However, taking the age groups from 20 to 34, it is shown in the Year Book that there were 113,001 males, exclusive of Maoris, within those ages in the Dominion in 1936.

The numbers of single men in the \arious age groups of the 1936 census were as follows: 20 13,228 21-24 47,451 25-29 35,531 30-34 16,791 113,001 The total number of Maoris within the age groups concerned at the time of the last census was 18,450, and it might be assumed that half that number, 9225, were males. However, the number of single men in that total cannot be stated.