N.C.O/'s were trained at the Battalion Exercises in January, February and March, when on each occasion full-dress rehearsal was staged. During Mobilization, considering the situation and the constant movement of units to and from rest billets to the ie, and afterwards when the Corps turned over to Internal Secu ity entailing the feeding of posts, patrols and units standing by at Police Stations, etc, the mobile cooks" lorry system functioned well. There were naturally complaints—mostly from the less responsible opinion in the Corps, and partly because the type of food served was not the kind of food that particular sets of men were used to. All Battalion Commanders and Unit Commanders, as soon as the Corps was partially demobilized, were given a questionnaire io answer: the majority agreed that the system stood the strain and was the only system which would have stood the strain, that under the circumstances the feeding at the price was as good as could be reasonably expected.
There. were only two incidents—one when about fifty men in different units were seized with colic early one morning, which passed off in a few hours. The trouble was not traced definitely; scme thought it was due to a particular, issue of jam, others to men sleeping out on camp beds and a sudden drop in temperature, causing a chill. The other was a shortage of food in several units over a period of three days. This was caused through pilfering by certain cooks after the lorries had been loaded and were waiting in the Dril Hall to go out to units.
Owing to the amount of shelling in the line, it was not easy to get cooks to go North of the Creek. They definitely refused to sleep North of the Creek. Therefore cooks' lorries had to return from front line units at night, were filled up and remained full in the Drill Hall all night, before proceeding at 5.30 a.m, with the day supp! They had to be filled up at night and remain full during the night owing to the necessity for resting the cooks and the difficulty of issuing the day's supply at 3 a.m.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.