DEFENCE NEEDS IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25090, 23 January 1947, Page 6

DEFENCE NEEDS IN BRITAIN

POSSIBLE CHANGE IN ESTIMATES (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 22. “Shall we see big changes in the Service estimates?” asks LieutenantGeneral* H. G. Martin, military correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph.” Referring to the White Paper of last October he remarks that it lays down that the new Minister of Defence is to provide a unifying influence, the lack of which in the past has resulted in separate consideration of the claims of the naval, air, anti-aircraft, and field forces, each in its own watertight compartment. The Service estimates are due to appear by the end of February and Lieutenant-General Martin assumes that as usual the total for which the Services are asking will be found greater than that for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is able to budget. If so then the first duty of the Minister of Defence on taking office will be to make a cut and revise apportionments to the Services accordingly. But Cabinet is unlikely to give him any precise directions. All they can be certain about is the necessity to economise in manpower, material, resources, and money. This only emphasises the need for the Minister’s unifying influence. Proceeding to theories on the Services’ requirements Lieutenant-Gene-ral. Martin asks if the battleship is really necessary. He adds that it does not seem so.

“The British battle line of capital ships was last engaged at Jutland,” says Lieutenant-General Martin. “Survival in a ‘naughty world’ can be achieved by avoiding war, and this can be done by possessing a deterrent weapon with adequate power to hit back. That power can be given by long-range bombers—plenty of them 100 per cent, ready. “The answer to • bombs, possibly atomic, dropped by the enemy, would be fighters, plenty of them backed by all other forms of anti-aircraft defence. the whole 100 per cent, ready.” The Army, Lieutenant-General Martin thinks, should apply itself to services which are common to the Navy, Army, and Air Force, but which each maintains on a separate basis with separate overheads —transport, catering, engineering, and medical. In every instance the Army is the largest user and could run them for all three Services.

Lieutenant-General Martin thinks the high commands should be unified in peace no less than in war. He finds that while in each of America’s seven unified commands overseas there will be a supreme commander for each, Britain has taken a contrary line. The South-East Asia Command has died unsung. In South-East Asia and the Middle East Britain has now reverted to a trinity of commanders-in-chief who must rely on mutual liaison to ensure the pooling of intelligence and unity of effort. This is a disturbing thought, says Lieutenant-General Martin. since liaison is the sport of personalities.