"Without realising it at the time, we had a unique place in New Zealand's military history," writes Ian McKie. "We were, in fact, an elite, the last New Zealanders conscripted solely for the defence of Empire, and on 1 November 2000, the first of us celebrated our 70th birthday."

"We were the 5th intake CMT"

The Compulsory Military Training scheme originally voted for in a referendum, envisaged every 18 year-old becoming militarily proficient and ready to meet Cold War demands.

I visualise the origins of the 5th intake, rather lightly. The British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden rings Sid Holland, our Prime Minister with the following request. "Sid, old chap, we're in a bit of a bind. We have to keep a large garrison in Germany, are committed beating down terrorists in Malaya, and have to support the UN in Korea, and are running a bit short of chaps.

"We're a bit concerned that the Russians might drive from the Caucasus through the Arab countries towards the Suez Canal. We have troops there, but need more to protect the canal as we depend on it for your lamb and butter. Do you think you could give us a Division of your chaps to beef up the defence?"

Sid's reply in good Anglophile tradition would have been, "Of course, Tony old chap, we have a compulsory military training scheme for just this sort of problem, although it's been on hold so our regular forces can work on the wharves which the commo unions brought to a standstill."

There is a more formal account, in historically correct form, in Ian McGibbon's excellent first volume of the history of New Zealand involvement in the Korean War.

Defence heads soon reminded Sid, that under our law no troops under 21 could be sent to fight overseas. A simple solution, Sid found, was to call up everyone turning 21. The decision was made in October 1951. I heard of it through a radio announcement on the 1st of November. Everyone born between that date and 31 October 1952 was to be conscripted.

It filled me with more than just considerable horror. Recently qualified as a radiographer and in my first staff appointment in a provincial hospital, I was to turn 21 on 8 November and be married on the 17th. Twenty weeks military training, followed by three years as a reservist was the last thing I wanted, let alone the possibility of engaging in some war I'd not even heard of. The hospital wanted to appeal but was firmly told that no appeals would be accepted.

RELUCTANT SOLDIERS: Ian McKie (left) with two of his hut mates on their last day at Burnham Camp.

So it was that I found myself unwillingly trudging beside a troop train in a searing Canterbury northwester in that February 50 years ago on my way to incarceration in Burnham Camp, having left a disconsolate new wife on Christchurch station.

Outfitting took days, and two days were spent on psychological tests to determine our soldierly fates.

The basic training offered very little this generation had not already done as school cadets, apart from such matters as washing and shaving in cold water. Perhaps being passed through a room full of tear gas in masks, and having them ripped off as we left the room in order to sample the effects of chemical warfare, was a new experience. So also the films on what happened to certain of our parts if we met bad girls while on leave! That was mild compared to what I had seen in hospitals as a student, so I was able to help carry out those it was too much for. Our most exciting activity was searching through our clapped out World War II issue clothing and equipment to find if some bore the names of brothers or fathers, even possibly from World War I!

Came the end of our basic training and a weekend leave with the promise on our return of a posting for training in our designated Corps.

After an uncomfortable cramped bus trip overnight we were duly lined up to hear our fate. Smugly anticipating a place in a hospital unit where my professional training and skills would grant me privilege and rank, it took some time for the facts to sink in. I was posted to that most outlandish of destinations, Waiouru to the exalted role of radio operator in a tank! Such was the Army's way - 'radio…' in my title, so radio it must be, despite those days of aptitude testing where even a blind and deaf psychologist should have known that allowing me near anything mechanical was a recipe for disaster.

Immediately after handing in stores and equipment and packing, a train appeared and we were conveyed to Lyttelton, left on a siding for several hours and then herded into steerage type accommodation on the inter-island ferry. A day of relative freedom in Wellington and once more crowded into the Auckland train, less than sober most of us, and propelled on to Waiouru station in the darkness of early morning. Fed with some burnt leftover WWII ration soup (American surplus from the discarded packets) we were hustled to barracks and permitted brief sleep.

Our benign hut NCO woke us. My first action after dressing was to open the North doors of the barrack hut to a clear sunrise illuminating in its pink glow, my first ever view of the magnificence of Mount Ruapehu.

EVASION SKILLS USED: The dreaded confidence course at Waiouru.

The remainder of the day was less exciting and stimulating. Massed in the camp theatre, the Armoured Training Squadron OC lectured us on our regimental distinctness and the reasons, which I have forgotten, that our badge was silver. Sorted into troops, the programme began. Radio operators, gunners and drivers each went their own way. Our mission was to jointly learn our roles on the Valentine tank, already obsolete when WWII began 13 years previously. Radio work began as classroom, with equally obsolete No 19 sets, in two parts, the high frequency B set failing if a light shrub came between sets. Complex to initiate and form the appropriate networks it was a miraculous event when they actually worked. Our mobile exercises were on the back of cut down gun tractors, of which we had only one go. Strangely the sets worked but I found myself, through some atmospheric freakery in conversation with a Sydney taxi-driver!

KICKING UP THE SNOW: A Valentine tank at speed during a winter exercise at Waiouru in 1952.

After completing (?) our radio course we moved to gunnery. This began with a mock-up turret from which an airgun was fired at targets in a model landscape of the type used by model railway enthusiasts. The big day came when live firing was on the agenda. Away from the main camp into an area with rusting tank bodies as targets nestled on the hillside we were to fire, one by one, from a single tank. First up forgot to elevate, and as we stood behind watching, the loud detonation was accompanied by a spray of Waiouru soil as the solid projectile impacted just yards in front of the muzzle.

We were deemed at this stage to be fully trained and competent and therefore eligible for the Passing Out Parade. Seemingly endless rehearsals with the other arms led to an impressive occasion. Zealous NCOs decided the webbing to be worn should be blancoed. My loping stride, developed on long tramps in the Southern Alps did not endear me to drill instructors who loathed an inability to march in step and relegated me to the sideline in statuesque mode, defining a comer of the parade ground!

Standing strictly immobile I observed the present-arms as the principal dignitary arrived. On the 'slap' and 'stamp' manoeuvre, a cloud of white dust rose over the serried ranks. I laughed. Such antics as the blanco episode arose from the presence, unknown in Burnham, of imported instructors from the UK. Private soldiers were bits of dirt to be harassed and cleaned up, from dirty boot studs onwards.

Our worst problem was food. It was meagre and supplements had to be sought, usually in the form of a fried egg sandwich bought from a caravan - which later proved to be part of our rations, purloined from the mess - or slabs of fruit cake in the YMCA.

I am reminded of the porridge every time I see thick grey cloud over the Tararuas. Worst, was one morning when each had served a teaspoon of scrambled egg and an inch square piece of bacon. I was the one who answered the officer's, "Any complaints?" The outcome was a couple of days when adequate meals were served. Another morning we were told no milk had arrived. I had seen the cans behind the mess, and organised some help to carry them in and parade them through the mess. Coming to a military halt, I managed to drop one squarely on the toes of the least popular mess orderly. However, justice was seen to be done. After our return home we read of 17 mess orderlies and cooks convicted in the Taihape Court of theft. They were taking most of our rations home and selling the rest.

Heating was another problem. Our 30-man barrack had a pot-belly stove with a sparse daily allocation of coal. Previous intakes had removed boards from the eaves and the nights were cooling. Behind the Officers Mess I discovered a truckload-sized coal heap, replenished frequently. A nightly covert foray made us the warmest of huts. Fatigues in that mess also provided us with extra rations, and toasting the officers' bread on the pot-belly was a nightly routine.

Some relief came when a fellow radiographer who had trained with me and worked in the camp hospital became aware of my presence. He had accumulated leave and with some subtlety made my presence known, and I was able to answer hospital calls in his absence, much to the chagrin of certain of my superiors.

Immediately prior to our only leave weekend, some were called before our leaders and informed that instead of leave we were to proceed to Linton Camp for an officers selection board. My objection was disallowed and we were duly despatched. My intransigence came to the fore once more, and naturally I failed. My solutions to the problem solving exercises, to take a single example, getting a heavy Bailey bridge roller over a flooded stream was to have two men swing it and throw it over - two feet was not enough! For my six-minute impromptu speech I extolled the pacifist virtues of Mahatma Gandhi.

My military career to date was summed up on our final day when a list of the exemplary was posted to indicate the award of a single stripe. My name was on the list - with a single heavy stroke all but obliterating it!

All sagas must end and my final week ended with a semblance of domestic bliss. My friend, the camp radiographer and his wife invited my wife to stay with them and then travel home with me. Thus, for me a week of comfortable bed, civilised evenings, with no complications greater than making sure I was back in barracks before discovery. To the last, my friends and I were even able to continue our evasive skills in avoiding PT and the dreaded confidence course.

Twenty-one days' annual training remained for the ensuing three years. Back home the resident cadre made sure we performed. Strangely I enjoyed it. C Squadron of the 3rd Armoured Regiment was virtually run by a single family. OC, 2/IC and Squadron Sgt Major were pothers, veterans with a no nonsense realistic approach through having been there.

I was selected for NCO training which meant weekly parades subject to my being on hospital call alternate weeks. I learnt the usual drills, something of organisation and of realistic Army life. Highlight was a weekend exercise at a remote local beach with a full squadron of the venerable Valentines, all of which, unlike Waiouru, worked. It was well conceived, practical and I was a little flattered to actually be the commander of my tank - the chap with his head out the top.

There remained the Annual Camp, two weeks of exercises and training. Complications set in. A promotion and return to my original metropolitan hospital in charge of the training. A signal honour at 22. The Army caught up with me, posting me to the Armoured Car Regiment, NZ Scottish. I tried on the kilt once in front of my wife and some friends, and their laughter convinced me that was not my military future. Salvation came with an edict reducing our commitment from three years to just one.

The Annual Camp remained and I was despatched again to Waiouru and the Divisional Armoured Regiment to complete the two weeks. I was to arrive a day after the camp assembled, and, on the train up met, of all people another slightly unwilling health professional. Together we hatched a plot which strangely came to fruition. It was to approach the Medical Officer with the idea of two highly trained professionals instantly available to operate the Regimental Aid Post. Fortune intervened as the unit had only a single medic and we completed the establishment. We worked honestly, and I think to a higher standard than otherwise would have prevailed. The ambulance, as well as conveying sick and injured to the camp hospital, gave us opportunity for hot showers, renewing reading material and purchasing foodstuffs the army failed to supply. It was also a bonus for my radiographer friend, and once more he was able to take his overdue leave. We lived comfortably, drew our meals from the officers' mess and never ever came in contact with cold steel.

One incident remains as a highlight. Assembling an escort of two armed troopers we conveyed a half-gallon flagon of colourful liquid to each cookhouse early one morning. Apologising to the cooks for doing this late, and in the presence of the mess queues, we proceeded to put a measured amount into the porridge containers. The flagon bore an extravagant label with multiple warnings declaring it to be the fabled K**l C**K , reputed to diminish the lascivious and rapacious soldiery's interest in the opposite gender.

It was near twenty years later, in a hotel bar I heard a conversation in which the speaker swore solemnly he had observed the administration of the substance. Striking up conversation with him to authenticate the occasion the facts indicated he had indeed witnessed the administration. It wasn't surprising to hear that when he arrived home the effect had worn off!

What if the Russians had launched the attack Eden feared, and the 5th Intake of CMT became the 3rd NZEF? I have often mused on the affinity with the 1st and 2nd NZEF, my father's and brother's wars. That affinity, under-trained, under equipped and into initial disaster until the High Command worked out which war they were fighting! We'd have made it eventually because we were Kiwis!

The military career of 774355 Trooper - later Lance Corporal me, ended.

One further detail remains. Resuming family and hospital life and my busy tutoring, I was shortly approached by the cadre NCO of 2 General Hospital to see if I would fill the Territorial vacancy they had for a sergeant radiographer. After I accepted, it was quite a while before my wife resumed conversation with me!

Leaving the Health Service, the writer was ordained into the Anglican ministry and from 1962 to 1972 served as a Territorial Force Chaplain with 2 Field Regiment, the Territorial component of 16 Field Regiment RNZA and 2 General Hospital RNZAMC.