6000 WANTED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 38, 14 February 1941, Page 6

6000 WANTED

E.P.S. PERSONNEL

THE MAYOR'S WARNING

DANGER OF ATTACK

The need for a threefold increrse in the personnel of the Emergency Precautions Scheme, at present numbering about 2000, was stressed by the Mayor (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop) in an address to the annual meeting of the Wellington Centre of the St. John Ambulance Association over which he presided last night.

The Emergency Precautions organisation was of real importance in New Zealand, said Mr. .iislop, and was particularly important in Wellington. It had its genesis at the time of the Napier earthquake, and with the outbreak of the war it became necessary, in view of the possibility of developments in this part of the world, to build up the organisation. At first it was difficult to get members for the Home Guard and for the E.P.S. and lo get people to realise that preparations were necessary for something which was real. 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 until 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.

The organisations were growing every day but were not yet nearly strong enough, said the Mayor. There were about 2000 in the Home Guard and about the same number in the E.P.S., but if the E.P.S. was to be effective it needed three times its present membership.

"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 Rangitane was sunk not much further 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.

POSSIBLE DAMAGE IN ONE HOUR

\'H you had a raider—just one—lying off here, not necessarily at Lyall Bay where it might have to deal with Fort Dorset, but off Makara, it could easily send in shells over the 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 only an hour could land, with reasonable marksmanship, 1200 shells in this place.

"I'm pointing that out so that people will realise that the possibility of a hit-and-run raid is no wild dream but something definitely calculated on and against which provision has to be made."

The Emergency Precautions Organisation, 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 minimise 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 organisation 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 asreement with what the Mayor had said.