S. AFRICAN DEFENCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 71, 25 March 1939, Page 9

S. AFRICAN DEFENCES

GREAT IMPROVEMENT

MINISTER'S REVIEW

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

CAPE TOWN, March 23

The Defence Minister, Mr. O. Pirow, in his annual defence statement in the House of Assembly today, said that the British Government had generously enabled South Africa's most urgent, requirements to be met. The position with regard to arms and equipment had greatly improved.

South Africa would soon be able to satisfy her own ammunition requirements. She now had 2080 air pilots, two bomber and two fighting squadrons, five training squadrons, one reconnaissance squadron, and a troopcarrier squadron. Each squadron, with reserves, comprised 25 planes.

The Union possessed twelve batteries of artillery. Man-power was available at short notice and could be doubled. Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Walvis Bay, and East London would have 15-inch and 9.2-inch guns.

The Admiralty was lending H.M.S. Erebus, which was being reconditioned at a cost to South Africa of £100,000.

She was expected to arrive on September 1 and would be manned by naval personnel till a South African crew was trained.

The Government's plans, Mr. Pirow added, included the mobilisation of industries and measures to check profiteering. The Union, he said, was exceeding the suggestions of the Imperial Defence Committee as regards, coast

defence,