NEXT BALLOT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4523, 14 January 1942, Page 4

NEXT BALLOT

DRAFTS FOR TRAINING FEW WANTED IMMEDIATELY PROVISION OF CAMPS No direct indication can be given “at' present of the approximate date on which married men and young territorials called in the ballot to be announced next Tuesday will be drafted to camp for training. The usual machinery of medical examinations and the hearing of appeals will come into operation immediately after the ballot is published. It will, therefore, be some time before any of the men concerned become available for the army. The ballot, like those held in the past, will warn the men called of their military obligations. First they will be medically examined, and the fit men will be sorted out. Classification of grades of fitness will follow, after which drafts will be prenared for camp. Time will also be allowed in which men who intend to do so may lodge appeals, or permit their employers to do this for them. The ballot system tends to offset rush periods at the eleventh hour. It will be a few weeks before any of the balloted reservists are ready to be called for camp. When the preliminaries have been completed, however, a small proportion of the men will enter camp almost immediately. The remainder will not be required at once, but will be on call for any draft which may require to be filled at any time, as has been the case up to now, and continues to be, with single men called in previous ballots and not yet drafted. The provision of camps for the training of additional drafts is claiming the attention of the authorities. A programme of eamp sites is in course of preparation, and adequate facilities should be available by the time further mobilisation is carried into effect. OFFICIAL EXPLANATION FOR HOME SERVICE ONLY It is officially announced that the coming ballot of married men for the army is for Home Service only. The question has been raised as to whether there will be a separate ballot for married men required for overseas service, and the official information is that a separate ballot will be necessary. In the event of a married man being called for overseas service, it is understood that every effort will be made to give him time in which to adjust his own affairs before leaving the country. In a statement early last November the Minister of National Service, the Hon. R. Semple, said that as far as possible married men would be called for overseas service about five or six months before they would normally be required to enter camp, so that they would have ample time in which to put their affairs in order. Since that time, of course, the situation has become more critical as far as this country is concerned, and that announcement, it is pointed outj has to be viewed in the light of the altered circumstances.

PHYSICAL FITNESS CASE OF MEN WHO HAVE BEEN REJECTED NEED FOR REVIEW Modern warfare is largely a matter of mechanisation. The days when the infantry went through a long campaign mostly on foot appear to have gone. There has been sufficient time, and ample opportunty, for the military medical authorities to determine what affects these changes have had regarding the physical standards of the troops. Between 50,000 and 60,000 men in the Dominion have been rejected for active service because of some physical defect when the conditions of active service and the full effects of the mechanising processes could hardly have been foreseen. In the light of the experience and knowledge .gained would it not be possible to enrol the«g men now ? Even in the infantry the conditions have changed rapidly. The British forces did not march from the Egyptian frontier to Benghazi and beyond. Theer may have had to be some fairly long tramjjg. but in order to keep the forces in touch with the retreating enemy they had to be conveyed in motor vehicles. It is the long series of marches, day and night, that imposes the severe test. That slow method of moving troops appears to be a thing of the past. The Dominion now needs the services of men who have been unabl; to reach the original standards of physical fitness. These standards are not immovable, and adjustments based on a fuller knowledge now possessed of the requirements might result id adding large numbers to the military forces of the Dominion.