§ Mr. Wootton-Daviesasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that 2,720 officers have been released from the Army since the start of the war, he can state the number of such officers who were specially trained for an Army career; and what cost such training represented to the State?
§ Captain MargessonI assume that my hon. Friend has in mind Regular officers who had made the Army their career. No serving Regular officers have been released. Of the 2,720, 1,070 were members of the Regular Army Reserve of Officers recalled to service. A proportion of these will have had the normal training at Woolwich or Sandhurst before they were commissioned, but many were voluntary members of the Reserve who held temporary commissions during the last war and cannot be said to have been specially trained for an Army career. It is impossible without exhaustive research into each individual case, to say how many of the officers passed through Woolwich or Sandhurst or what further training they subsequently received, or what such training cost the State, but in any case the State will have had many years of peace-time service from these officers in return for their training. Of the 1,070, 632 were released for a definite 1961W period and have now returned to military duty. The number now on release is therefore 438.