RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 79, 27 December 1939, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

Hitler, it is reported, is encouraging Germans to keep goats. The rest of the world, it would appear, has already got his goat. « * * Workmen are reported to have dug up a number of battle axes near a town in Europe. Maybe it wits the site of one of those 1930 Peace Conferences. The German propaganda machine, it is stated, issues news of imaginary air battles. The idea presumably is to use the sky to cloud the issues. * * * If the food shortage in Germany has involved the Germans in keeping goats, we feel that they will quickly work off their venom on Hitler as a result. The theory of keeping goats and the practice differ widely. The whole task of keeping goats is to keep them. Left alone, they disappear into the most inaccessible places which make the efforts of a cow seem puerile. Admittedly goats eat anything from the morning’s newspaper to a pair of trousers, but this fails to make life anything but one wild effort to keep the goats from eating material far above the worth of the milk produced as a result. Moreover, the real task comes when one tries to extract milk from a goat. Milking a cow is nothing compared with the job. Only the super optimists can possibly imagine that the thimbleful of milk produced after patient efforts repays the trouble of having a goat about the place. The milk, moreover, tastes like nothing on earth. The further problem of finding a spot sufficiently distant where the billy goat and its smell may be kept is the final reason why Hitler must be in extreme danger of sudden death.

Temperatures of 54 degrees below zero are reported in the Finnish battle areas. Hundreds of Russian tanks have been abandoned because their oil froze. This occurs at temperatures of 35 degrees below zero downwards, depending on the oil. Moreover, other factors tend to make fighting difficult under intense cold. Most mechanized units rely upon some form of battery for starting purposes and lighting. The colder it gets the more inert these batteries become till in intense cold they fail to function. Moreover, cooling devices such as radiators become obstacles to the proper functioniug of an internal combustion engine during intensely cold weather. The task of keeping a fleet of mechanized war units in operation is further increased by carburettor starting difficulties. At temperatures of 50 below no internal combustion engine will start without preheating if it uses a normal motor fuel and oils.

Under conditions reported on the Finnish front even motor fuel itself will freeze unless it is protected from the cold. As a matter of fact, motor fuel varies greatly in its ability to remain normal under intense cold. The type of fuel used in motor-cars starts to get solid at about 25 degrees Centigrade. Special aviation fuels have to be guaranteed to withstand 60 degrees Centigrade. At temperatures colder than that even these special fuels freeze or get thick. Crude oils, such as those used in Diesel engines, freeze at the comparatively high temperature of -12 degrees Centigrade. In fact, difficulties have been experienced in this respect in some of the frosty areas of NOw Zealand. There are areas in New Zealand where nearly 50 degrees of frost have been reported. Most lubricating oils usually give trouble at about -35 degrees Centigrade. Actually, trouble starts at lower temperatures than those quoted because the smallest amount of water in the oil or fuel freezes up and causes a blockage.

If great cold lias an effect on the operation of mechanized units in warfare the self-same cold produces many effects on the human machine. At temperatures of 60 below freezing, and lower, smoking becomes almost impossible because the pipe becomes covered with ice. Every metallic object, such a s a gun barrel, causes a severe burn if it is touched with the bare hand. The air is so dry that marching men perspire profusely and get terribly thirsty. They cannot quench their thirst because the snow is so cold it is equivalent to swallowing a live coal. The men as they march become enveloped in clouds of vapour caused by their perspiration, which freezes into small crystals above them, falling with a rattling sound on everything. At temperatures of SO below there is a very grave danger of the lungs freezing. This produces pneumonia, which comes on rapidly and is quickly fatal. All foods, of course, are unrecognizable at these low temperatures. They are quite inedible till thawed out and cooked. That is in itself a task offering many special problems to any armj attacking in the field.

Would you kindly tell us in your most interesting column the meaning and pronunciation of the word “Echelon, (pronounced eshelon) and also why it has been adopted in this war for New Zealand, writes “S.D.N.” We used to say drafts and contingents, and I am sure there must be many people as ignorant as we as to the use of the word Is it because we are allies of France. Wishing you the Compliments of the Season.” .. The following letter from another reader adds: — “Can you tell me why the military force now in camp, preparing for service overseas, is' .called the ‘First Echelon’?” asks "One of the Soldiers. “Any army textbook will tell you w’hat ‘echelon’ means, and it does not, by any stretch of imagination, refer to a body of soldiers. I have frequently laughed, so have others, at the high-falutin’ words used in the wrong place by many public speakers and announcers. To call troops getting ready for embarkation ‘First Echelon’ is priceless. Cannot someone in authority tell the powers that be, the same powers who order our lives today, that ‘echelon’ is not the term to use, and, at the same time, provide them with the correct one?” [lt is correct that the word Echelon” fails to convey the meaning and is wrongly used. In view of the fact that it has become adopted as The Word, and has supplanted Contingent, Expeditionary Force and the like, there seems little chance of getting it altered. It has become a cliche which will be with us until the boys come home again. No doubt pundits of the dictionary and sticklers for the King’s English will gradually submit to the outrage, in the hope that, by not causing confusion in minor details, the main issue will be the more speedily determined. Nevertheless, Echelon is not the correct word, and let us hope historians of war win permit it to stage a fade-out.] “An elderly person was asked the latest war news—by a musterer who had been out all day—‘Well, I don t quite understand what it means but the Cuman Admiral has scuttled himself-the accent on the scuttled as it happensbut. isn't that the neatest summing up possible, says “-Three Cheers For The Navy.”