BLINDED SOLDIERS

Camp News, Volume 3, Issue 131, 17 July 1942, Page 6

BLINDED SOLDIERS

Training Arrangements x Through representations made to the New. Zealand Government by the St. Dunstan’s New Zealand Blinded ’Soldiers’ Association and Sir lan Fraser (director of St. Dunstan’s), a New Zealand Committee for War Service Blinded has been established to make arrangements for the suitable training of servicemen blinded or partially blinded in the present war. Most of this training will be carried Put by the New Zealand Institute for the Blind, but in subjects not covered •by its activities the committee will make arrangements for training elsewhere. At present the committee is compiling a register of all persons who ■have received injuries to one or both eyes or have contracted defective vision as the result of active service. Twenty-two names have been recorded With injuries to both eyes. Most of these men are still receiving medical attention, and it is likely that a number will require special training in new vocations. The first New Zealand soldier to be totally blinded in this war, C. N.

tute for the Blind), and W. Prentis Humphries, has just completed hie training at the New Zealand Institute for the Blind, having learnt Braille and typewriting and various kinds of basket-making. “In every way he has shown the true spirit of St. Dunstan’s and the blind of this country,” says an official report. The committee consists of three members, Messrs., Donald McPhee, chairman (representing St. Dunstan’s New Zealand Blinded Soldiers’ Association), A. J. Hutchinson (N.Z. Insti-

(Commercial Travellers and Warehousemen’s Blinded Soldiers and Sailors’ Fund), with Mr. H. J. Aetkins as honorary secretary.