The Press TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1955. Army Training in New Zealand

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27584, 15 February 1955, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1955. Army Training in New Zealand

The changes in New Zealand's defence strategy as a result of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting, which seem to make it certain that in any future war New Zealand troops will serve somewhere in South-east Asia, will inevitably call for a new pattern in Army training in the Dominion. Most of the distinguished soldiers now in high positions in the Regular and Territorial Army in the Dominion won their laurels and gained their battle experience in theatres of war where conditions were far different from those in which the New Zealand soldiers of the future may have to serve. New Zealand artillerymen earned great distinction in the Western Desert and in Italy. But it is unlikely that similar conditions of warfare will be met in Malaya, for instance, where it seems possible that New Zealand may soon commit troops to carry on the unending fight against Communist jungle terrorists. The terrain of almost every country in Southeast Asia is against the use of tanks, at least in the way in which they were so successfully employed in the closing stages of the war by the Second New Zealand Division. The reliance on motor transport for shifting troops as near as possible to a starting line for a new attack does not seem possible in roadless jungles. The whole signals net and chain of command will be foreign to the experience of the last war; and the problems of supply for Ordnance and the Army Service Corps will be different again. The emphasis will surely once again be on the infantryman; and firepower will be based on what the infantryman can carry with him. The last war, for a highly mobile unit such as the New Zealand Division, was a series of specialised jobs for thousands of men—highly-trained specialists in a hard-hitting unit which normally worked as a whole. The future role of the New Zealand soldier may still be that of a specialist—but a specialist infantryman.

Australia has much more knowledge of the likely needs of a trained soldier in Southeast Asia. If ever experience was won at great cost, it was won in New Guinea by Australian infantrymen. The Commonwealth already has a jungle training school in Victoria; and it has been announced that such training is to be intensified and made available to many more men. New Zealand’s experience in the Pacific was confined to those New Zealanders who served with the 3rd New Zealand Division in its brief life in the island-hopping campaign of the Americans. (Later, many of those men were transferred to serve in Italy, where conditions and climate were totally different.) Army Headquarters in New Zealand is no doubt fully aware of the implications of the proposed switch of New Zealand’s defence interests to an area much closer home. The complete change in thinking which must accompany the new defence pattern may well be reflected in the basic training given the 18-year-old national servicemen. British national servicemen, many of them under 21, have for some time been doing part of their service in Malaya. Many New Zealanders, thousands of them with first-hand experience of the Army in the last war, have long been convinced that the basic training in New Zealand does not give full value for the soldier’s time and the taxpayer’s money. The opportunity seems to exist now for a radical change, with the emphasis on training men for the sort of life they may be called on to face if war is once again forced on the free peoples of the world. The first essential for any change in basic training is a supply of instructors trained under the appropriate conditions. It may be possible for New Zealand in the first instance to profit from Australia’s experience and training facilities. When the House of Representatives comes to the promised debate on a new' defence policy, it will be incumbent on members to examine thoroughly the desirability of changing the present system of basic training.