Hundreds of Bermuda Regiment "deserters'' are to be hauled before the courts from today as the army gets tough with reluctant recruits.

The Regiment has even taken on extra staff to go after the 1,000 "soldiers'' who have failed to turn up for training -- after nearly forty percent of this year's intake went "missing in action''.

The number has risen over the last three decades from five percent to 30 percent last year -- and up to 40 percent this year.

And men who thought they got away with not completing their service up to ten years ago are also in the firing line for fines or a prison sentence.

This week the first conscripts will be appearing in court charged with failing to attend for a medical as ordered -- and Defence Department administrator Larry Burchall predicted dozens will be summoned each week.

"This has been an escalating problem,'' he said. "I suspect there has been a sort of creeping awareness that if you didn't bother to turn up, then basically nothing will happen to you. In the past ten years, the number of men who, annually fail to show up for their medicals has increased.

"This creates a problem in trying to maintain the Bermuda Regiment at its desired strength.'' Mr. Burchall said whilst the notion that a blind eye would be turned for those who didn't attend may have been true in the past, it would not be from now on.

"We are winding up now. We have done around 20 over a 12 day period. The server has done four over the weekend.'' He said the intention is to pursue the 150 young men who have failed to turn up for a medical -- the first part of their induction -- out of the 377 called up this August.

Then their attention will turn to 126, out of 326, who did not appear in 1999.

They will then start to chase hundreds of men who missed their military service as far back as 1990.

And he said the server who has been taken on by the Regiment to go after the men would have no shortage of candidates. "It is a target-rich environment,'' he said.

Under the purge, the unwilling recruits will be summoned to appear in Magistrate's Court under a violation of the Defence Act 1965, and could face a fine of up to $900 or three months in prison.

However, a court appearance will not be the end of the matter as the obligation to attend Warwick Camp still stands. And, Mr. Burchall said those who still refused to attend the Regiment would be in contempt of court.

Once the summons has been issued, there is no way of stopping the legal process, although he said at least one young man called up on receiving the notice asking to come to the Regiment, but was told it was too late.

A medical night is to be held within the next 30 days for those men who are expected to begin their military careers.