Women's War Service Auxiliary Memorandum No. 61

WOMEN’S WAR SERVICE AUXILIARY

P.O. Box 123
Wellington
5th August, 1942.

CIRCULAR MEMORANDUM No. 61
To DISTRICT COMMITTEES & SUB-CENTRE COMMITTEES

ENLISTMENT IN THE ARMED FORCES
As Committees are aware, there have been many questions asked by girls
volunteering for service and also by their parents regarding the policy
to be adopted in posting girls to the Navy, Army or Air Force, and
particularly are they anxious to know whether or not they will be re-
quired to serve in districts away from their own homes.

As you know each recruit must enlist and be available for Service any-
where in New Zealand. The policy of the three Services, however, is
almost identical. In the first instance women will generally be
employed in the area in which they enlist. If, however, there are no
suitable vacancies adjacent to their homes, they may be transferred to
some other place, but the tendency will always be to post women to
duties in their home localities. No guarantee, however, can be given
that women will be able to actually live in their own homes. It is
the policy of the Services to try and arrange this as much as possible,
but where it is not possible for women to live in their own homes they
will be accommodated in Navy, Army, or Air Force barracks. It will be
appreciated that the nature of the duties themselves will to a large
extent determine whether or not a woman would be required to live in
barracks. For instance, women employed on anti-aircraft batteries will
generally be living in barracks, and similarly women employed on Air
Force Stations will naturally require to live on the Stations, and the
same will apply as far as the Navy work is concerned.

Committees are notified of the above so that they may be in a position
to answer any queries raised on this subject.

OCCUPATIONAL RE-ESTABLISHMENT REGULATIONS: These regulations
apply to women [atte-sted?] to the Armed Forces on the same basis as men.

M. MALEMPRE

Dominion Secretary

P.S. EVIDENCE OF AGE: Representations have been made that in
certain cases women are unable to produce Birth Certificates
as they were born outside New Zealand. In such circumstances
their stated ages may be accepted without further evidence.
Also, if a women for some reason cannot produce a Birth Certif-
icate, and is obviously over 21 years of age and under 45 years
of age, the application may be accepted and the form noted
that Birth Certificate unavailable, but applicant is of ______
years of age “by appearance.”