SOLDIERS SPEAK OUT: AUSTRALIA IS NOT READY

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 October 1948, Page 3

SOLDIERS SPEAK OUT: AUSTRALIA IS NOT READY

(Air Mail) SYDNEY. “Australia is no more ready to fight today than in 1939—and we couldn’t be much worse than that. Not one branch of the R.A.A.F. is ready for a sudden struggle. We in Australia have no organisation at all lor war.” The above statements have just been made by two of Australia’s wartime leaders, Lieut.-General H. Gordon Bennett ( and Air Vice-Mar-shal W. D. Bostock. They were discussing the decision of the triennial conference of the Labour Party to continue its opposition to conscription. Both leaders consider that the attitude of the Labour Party to defence is unreal, and that reliance on volunteers is unsatisfactory. Certainly the number of volunteers has been quite inadequate. Both leaders declare that Australia’s defence position today is worse than it was in ‘1939.

No Army

General Bennett says Australia has no army, let alone a mobile striking force ready to be sent to battle stations in an emergency. Australia’s Occupation Force in Japan is small and therefore could not be relied on as a military factor in'war. Furthermore, many of the occupying troops are post-war enlistments who have had no battle training. Australia’s stockpile of strategic raw materials has dwindled and former war factories have no plan for prompt return to war production. Sole items on the credit side of Australia’s defence bal-ance-sheet are:—Fair quantity of motor transport, rifles, Sten guns, personal equipment. Air Vice-Marshal Bostock complains that Australia’s complex air defence system which was built up during the lasi; war has been allowed to disintegrate. Even the network of communications has been destroyed. There is not one fighter squadron ready for combat. There is no radar screen, and no advance base with petrol, etc. Compulsion Needed General Bennett and Marshal Bostock say that Australia’s most urgent defence need is a scheme of compulsory training for all youths aged 18. Secondly, they urge that scientific weapons, still in the blueprint stage, should be manufactured without further delay and men trained how to use them. Thirdly, the Air Force, as Australia’s first line of defence, should be overhauled and made ready so that the R.A.A.F. would at all times be an operational force in being. Fourthly, while pushing on with ■scientific developments, Australia should, with the weapons immediately available, create now a force which could spring out from our shores and hold long-range bases against the enemy. Marshal Bostock points out that it is fatuous for the Government to consider that alb Australia’s ex-service personnel constitute an immediate fresh reserve. Air crew, and particularly technical personnel, must be kept in touch with the great developments made with the weapons they knew as modern during the Second World War. Above all, Australia’s defence plan should be based on the idea of keeping the enemy away from Australia.