Y.M.C.A. OFFICER BACK FROM ITALY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 302, 22 December 1945, Page 6

Y.M.C.A. OFFICER BACK FROM ITALY

WORK OF HIS UNIT

(P.A.) Wellington, Dec. 20. Four and a-hali ,\c\u .-< \ a.; commissioner for ib-e Young Men’s Christian Associaten, with the 2nd NZ.E.F. in the Middle East has been Ihe Jot of Mr. Basil Potter, who returned with the draft in the Mooltan. He left New Zealand with the 6th reinforcements, and served in Egypt till October 1943, going on to Italy, where he remained with the Division till October of this year. There were still three Forces clubs in operation in Florence, Rome and Bari, and of these Ba** ; would be tne last to close, as it was near the embarkation port, h? said. Florence was a big cert re. There was a cinema, and dances every evening, and a billiard room and barbers shop. The Y.M.C.A. welfare branch v. as running a rest camp on the banks of the Arno river. Nearly all the troops were now quartered in buildings and many in hotels, but they were all “pretty well browned off” and longing to get back home.

When Mr. Potter left the Middle' East he handed over to Mr. R. K. Knapp Mobile cinemas had gone inside for the winter and were operating in buildings. A big one, presented by (he Motion Picture Exhibitors Association, was operating in the heart, ol Florence, and was accommodating large crowds nightly. It was open to all Allied servicemen. Mr. Potter said arrangements were complete for a Y.M.C.A, unit to go with the N.Z. force if it went to Japan. There would he two mobile cinemas, live mobile canteens, one truck an.l one jeep. Mr. Knapp would he in charge, and was likely also to be Commissioner for the National Patriotic Fund Board. The residue of the equipment of the unit in the Middle East would be handed over to the National Patriotic Fund Board, as it went out of use with the departure of ! the troops. It would be taken to Egypt for realisation. “There is fair amount of unrest in Italy.’’ said Mr. Potter. “Much of it is larrikinism, for discipline has entirely broken down, and fear of hunger also has something to do with it. There have been Communist processions in the north in Milan, and* in Bologna. The unrest is really thej political Left against the Right, and is •not directed against the Allies”