AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 10

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE

A MIMIC INVASION

NEWCASTLE AS OBJECTIVE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, August 19. Plans for the greatest peace-time manoeuvres in Australia have been formulated by the Defence Department. The Navy, Army, and Air Force will combine in an attack on Newcastle at dawn on Octpber 6. Troops drawn from militia and permanent forces will defend the city. More than 5000 men will take part in the manoeuvres. Staff officers of the three services regard the manoeuvres as the most significant and instructive effort undertaken by the defence authorities since the war. The plans, prepared with the utmost secrecy by commanding officers of the naval, military, and air forces, are designed primarily to test the defences of Newcastle against surprise attack. Newcastle has been chosen for the manoeuvres because of its vulnerability and its industrial importance. The main body of defenders will be the 2nd-35th Battalion, Newcastle; 33rd Battalion, Tarn worth; 41st Battalion, Lismore; and a company from Waratah. Sydney units in the mock war will include the Ist Division Engineers, Signallers, and Army Service Corps, the Ist Field Brigade, and detachments from the Army Medical Corps. Country troops are to be used in preference to metropolitan troops, so that the recent mobilisation plans developed by the Railway War Council may be tested. War Council officers will watch closely th*e embarkation of troops and equipment in the various country centres, and their debarkation in Newcastle. Late on the night of October 5, the 13th Battalion from Maitland will board the cruiser Canberra with beachlanding equipment. At dawn on October 6 they will land on a beach "somewhere near Newcastle," and begin the attack on the city. Other units co-operating with artillery forces, the Air Force, and the cruiser Sydney will oppose the landing. The Newcastle coastal defences also will endeavour to repel the invaders. : During the two-day attack, bombing planes from Richmond will try to destroy the steel works, wharves, and docks at Newcastle. The main road and rail lines of communication between Sydney and Newcastle also will be bombed theoretically. Senior officers from the three services will umpire the manoeuvres.