PATRIOTIC SERVICES IN ITALY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 35, 11 February 1944, Page 5

PATRIOTIC SERVICES IN ITALY

N.Z. TROOPS WELL SERVED (P.A.) Wellington, Feb. 10. “There is no other army which receives the front-line services our troops get," said Lieutenant-Colonel F. Waite, Commissioner for the National Patriotic Fund Board in the Middle East, in an interview this afternoon. 1.t.-Colonel Waite, who has been absent l*om New Zealand since the I middle of 1940, has returned with the I furlough draft. He is a member of the Legislative Council, and after spending a few days in Balclutha, intends returning to Wellington for the opening of Parliament. During December Lieut.-Colonel Waite was in Italy. It was one of the romances of the war, he said, that parcels for the New Zealand forces, packed by people from small villages to the main cities of the Dominion, arrived safely in the Middle East, and then got through dangerous waters of the Mediterranean, right up the Adriatic to Bari, to be delivered finally to the troops in the area of the Sangro River, four days before Christmas. It would he sufficient thanks to the people who were responsible for thess patriotic parcels, if they were able to see the pleasure they gave to men 10,000 miles away from home. Referring to the services provided for New Zealand troops, Lieut.-Colonel Waite said that the mobile canteens operated by the Y.M.C.A. and the Church Army, on behalf of the Patriotic Board, worked up with brigades right in the front line, giving them a free tes. service. Lieut.-Colonel Waite said that the New Zealanders were also the first in Italy to have a forces club established in such a forward position as Bari. Provision for meals and accommodation was made at the club for men cn leave from the Division. When he left, 200 men were coming down from the line to the club. “Having been in Italy fairly recently," added Lieut.-Colonel Waite, ! “I can assure relatives that the New I Zealand Division is in very good l heart."