MOUNTED RIFLES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 88, 15 April 1942, Page 5

MOUNTED RIFLES

USES OF THE HORSB | MAORI WAR AND SWCE (By J.C.) Not much is heard of the work done by our mounted rifles force serving in the Home Guard, but it is known that they are getting a most useful drilling in" the special duty which horsemen are called upon to carry out in actual service in such a country as ours. The Star recently published an excellent picture of English mounted rifles, a patrol of Home Guard Yeomanry fording a river in the Dartmoor district. it might almost betaken for a detachment of our own mounted rifles on the march in some of the rough open countrv in the interior of the North Island. The special interest for us in the photo®r . * s its proof that the horse is still indepensable in certain regions where there are unbridged streams and which are only reached by the roughest of tracks. 'Cavalry" in modern war zones is not all 'mechanised. Our forces are small, but their mobility in places which it is very necessary to patrol is great. The training of the force owes something to the traditions of our cavalry organisations of the past, although the coast and the sea are' now the chief objects of observation. The horse is now chiefly useful for enabling our defensive' troops to move quickly from place to place where wheeled passage is impossible. Lsed as part of the general j: in in which air scouts, coastguard or motor craft patrol, and light and heaw artillery all have their places, the resistance to an attempted invasion The only pity is that there are not more of each arm.

• The Old Militia A hitherto unrecorded incident of the use of mounted troops in New Zealand is contained in a letter which I received from one of our veteran settlers. The veteran has gone, but his letter is in my private papers, and I publish it now as a testimony in the first place to the military acumen of Sir Donald Maclean, who was Defence Minister in the early 'seventies. Although the Maori War was all but ended, the military settlers, or militia, were still required to attend periodical parades for drill at various centres throughout the country. My settler friend, on behalf of his fellow-farm-ers infantry company in the Upper Waipa. asked for a meeting place and horse paddock so that they could comply-with the regulations. "Many of us have to ride a long way to do our drill," he said. Sir Donald immediately seized the moment to ask the obvious question: "Why not have a mounted corps?" The militia man replied: "That is for you to say, Sir Donald. We have never had any assistance from the Defence Office; we must complv with the old regulations." "I shall alter that straight away," said the Minister. "This is the frontier and any further likely trouble will come from over yonder." He pointed to the other side of the Puniu River. "I am working and hoping for a permanent peace, but we must be prepared. You must be able to move quickly wherever you are required." So, the military settlers found their hopes and needs satisfied. Waikato Cavalry ' The Minister authorised the formation of two companies of Waikato Cavalry of 100 men each, and merperi the old in the new. The old infantry drill was scrapped, greatly to the pleasure of the settlers. Cavalry rode the frontier, covering all the border country from Cambridge township round the curving line of confiscated territory to Alexandra (now Pirongia). It was a volunteer corps, increased in strength by the enlistment of many of the settlers' sons. This force, organised on the lines of the Colonial Defence Cavalry, of 1863, was a backing for the Armed Constabulary, and an efficient and mobile guard until peace was fully and permanently established between pakeha and Maori. That is, of course, ancient history now; I recall it in order to fix the date (1871) and the origin of a corps whose descendants are in the Dominion's first lines of defence to-day. After the cavalry had become mounted infantry many served in South Africa, then in the World War, and their sons and grandsons in the present war. They have left their bones in all the war zones of the Empire. Their record should not be forgotten. In the ranks of our troops abroad and in our Home Guard to-day, the old families are well represented.