DANGER OF ATTACK SEEN

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 121, 15 February 1941, Page 8

DANGER OF ATTACK SEEN

Emergency Precautions

6000 MEN HELD NEEDED IN WELLINGTON

Stressing the importance of the Emergency Precautions organization in

New Zealand, the mayor, Ur. Hislop,

in an address at the annual meeting of the Wellington Centre of the St. John Ambulance Association on Thursday night, said that if the E.P.S. was to be effective it needed three times its present membership of about 2000. At first it had been difficult to get members for the Home Guard and for the E.P.S. and to get people to realize that preparations were necessary for something which was real, said Mr. Hislop. People thought that we were so far from the centre of the conflict that an enemy attack on the Dominion was never likely. It was not till the middle of November that there was any real response to the call for Home Guard and E.P.S. members, and from then the improvement in membership had been cumulative. “If by any chance." said the mayor.

"an attack should take place on this area or its environs you will need fully three times the number we have today, allotted to the various divisions and trained beforehand, to cope with the result of such an attack and to avoid disaster of a very great magnitude.

“People have only got to remember this: Not long ago the Turakina was sunk 300 miles off Cape Egmont—a day’s sail—the Ilangitane was sunk not much farther off on the other side. No naval authority knows and no one else knows how much nearer New Zealand the raiders might have been. They know that there was more than one raider. If they could get within 300 miles of New Zealand in complete secrecy and get away without being touched they could get closer with any luck.

“If you had a raider—just onelying off here, not necessarily at Lyall Bay where it might have to deal with Fort Dorset, but off Makara, it could send in shells ov,er rhe hills. A ship with eight guns would fire, depending upon the calibre, about 20 shells a minute —about 1200 in an hour. So a quick raid of ouly an hour could land with reasonable marksmanship. 1200 shells in this place. ‘•l'm pointing that but so that people will realize that the possibility of a hit-and-run raid is no wild dream but something definitely calculated on and against which provision has to he made." - ’ . .

The Emergency Precautions Organization. said the mayor, would deal with the immediate problems that would arise in any such bombardment —fire, casualties, evacuation in some areas, but not on a big scale, and the hundred and one things necessary to be done to minimize the effects of such a raid upon material and morale. “We have to bring the numbers up to three times the present strength, and I think we will.” said the mayor. "Your organization is playing a vital part in it. The training you have and will pass on to others will be essential if such an emergency arises.” Sir James Elliott expressed his complete agreement with what the mayor had said.