FOR N.Z. TROOPS IN PACIFIC AREA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 219, 16 September 1943, Page 3

FOR N.Z. TROOPS IN PACIFIC AREA

NEW YORK ANZAC DIVISION PROVIDES COMFORTS (P.A.) Auckland, Sept. 15. As the result of the visit to New' Zealand of Mr. Harold Rabling, chairman ol the Anzac Division of the British War Relief Society in New York, a large quantity of recreational and other material is to be supujied from America for the use of the Dominion service personnel in the South Pacific area. It has also been arranged that 500,000 American cigarettes shall be sent to Britain tor New Zealand airmen, and Mr. Rabling has handed to the National Patriotic run I Board the sum of £lOOO from his organisation as a gift for this year s Christmas parcel fund. Mr. Rabling, who is an Australian by birth, is resident director of the Vacuum Oil Company in New York, and lived lor many years in the United States. He is at present in Auckland toward the end of a tour oi. Austiaba and New Zealand on the business of his company, and he will return to New York in due course. In an interview, Mr. Rabling said that since its formation the Anzac Division had organised hospitality and entertainment lor Australian and New Zealand servicemen and servicewomen in the United States, and had sent large quantities of comforts ana supplies to the theatres of war in which the forces of the two countries, were engaged. It was now switching most of its overseas gift organisation to the Pacific, but would continue to send goods to Britain as might be necessary. His discussions with the National Patriotic Fund Board in Wellington, Mr. Rabling continued, had shown that there were a number of comforts which the troops in Pacific needed and which were almost unprocurable locally. Accordingly, it had been arranged that goods of those classes should be sent from America at the expense of the Anzac Division. They included 300 reams of bond paper for making up into writing pads in New Zealand, 200 dozen heavy cups and the same quantity of saucers, 46 dozen soft baseballs, six dozen baseball bats, supplies of hair combs and short pencils. and a quantity of indoor games, such as checKers, chess, and dominoes. Before his visit the division had supplied paper from which thousands of writing pads had been made for the use of New Zealand service personnel.