ARMY STANDS TO

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 303, 23 December 1941, Page 6

ARMY STANDS TO

ALL POSTS MANNED

STAFF AT HEADQUARTERS

During the alert all defence stations" in the city took the action which would be required in a real alarm. District headquarters was used for the assembly of staff and, according to Brigadier P. H. Bell, D.5.0., officer commanding northern military district, the plans worked excellently. . The time of the alert was a close secret, but by 5.45 a.m. all officers; with a skeleton office staff, were at their posts.

The alarm did not cause any great change from the normal at the forts,' said the brigadier. The posts were continuously manned and detachments were always on duty. Reports received from the camps indicated that prompt action was taken, "Altogether I was very satisfied with the exercise," said Brigadier Bell. "Of course it will produce valuable lessons and disclose the necessity for certain, improvements in the plans."

What had struck him particularly about the test was the great difficulty in some parts of the city in hearing the warnings. "As a matter of fact it was the telephone and not the siren that wakened me," he said. "The same applied to the 'all clear,' which was heard only faintly from district headquarters." Brigadier Bell added that on his way to the office he picked up an E.P.S. worker with the brassard of a nurse who said it took her 47 minutes to walk to "her post. That seemed a long, distance to expect a woman to go and be ready for a hard job of Work at the end of it, said the brigadier. • •'