SECRET WEAPONS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 277, 4 September 1946, Page 5

SECRET WEAPONS

Changed Methods of Warfare (Rec. 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 3. During Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery’s recent conference at Camberley the campaigns of the last six months of the war in Northern France were theoretically refouglit with the use of secret weapons, including atom bombs and projectiles, bacteriological warfare and poison gases, said Major-General N. W. McD. Weir, who attended the conference with Brigadier R. S. Park as representatives of the New Zealand military forces. Later the officers attending the conference travelled to France and went over the actual ground on which the campaign was fought. The discussion included a thorough consideration of the use of secret weapons and the changes they are likely to impose upon methods of warfare. One of (the chief problems they have created was> the rapid dispersal and reassembling of troops in order to avoid the full effects of new methods of attack. Immediately after his arrival in Britain an August 4 Major-General Weir went to Germany where he inspected bomb damage in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne and the Ruhr and the battlefields in their vicinity. Then he returned to Britain for the Camberley conference and for further conferences on air support at the School of Air Support, Old Sarum. Before leaving for New Zealand on September 14 he will also visit the school of infantry training at Old Sarum and the Ministry of Supply research station for the development of guided projectiles. He also discussed the question of liaison and supply with the War Office. Brigadier R. S. Park will soon return to New Zealand to take up the appointment of quartermaster-general. He will be replaced in London by Brigadier G. B. Parkinson. Major-General C. E. Weir, formerly commanding the artillery, Second New Zealand Division, and more recently commanding the -ICth British Division, will soon relinquish that command to take up an appointment at the Imperial Defence College.