RECRUITS NEEDED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20620, 22 November 1941, Page 7

RECRUITS NEEDED

AUSTRALIA’S DANGER FIGHT FOR EXISTENCE “LAW OF THE JUNGLE" SYDNEY, Nov. 17. In a broadcast appeal for reinforcements yesterday, the Minister for the Army, Mr. F. M. Forde, said that voluntary enlistment was Labour's principle, but time was desperately short and the danger was grave and terribly real. “I ask every eligible man to decide whether he will stand shoulder to shoulder with his fellow-countrymen in the A.1.F.,” he added. “There is a hard job to be done. Let us go out and get it over.” After referring to the Common-wealth-wide observance of yesterday as a day of national prayer and thanksgiving, Mr. Forde said that the people must turn to face the danger as they rose from prayer. They must take time off from living as they would like to live, in order to figh: for existence “Like a Lot of Gazelles” To General Sir Thomas Blarney, commander of the Australian forces in the Middle East, Australians are like a lot of gazelles grazing in a dell near the edge of the jungle. After giving a vivid account of the fighting at Greece and Crete, he said in a broadcast talk last night: “To come from that atmosphere and those scenes back to Australia gives one a most extraordinary feeling of what you might call helplessness. The beasts of prey of the jungle are working up toward you apparently unnoticed. It is the law of the jungie that they will spring upon you, merciless. “The Hun to-day has neither mercy nor morality. He is bent on the conquest and seizure of the world and the bringing of all people under his subjection. It is modernised jungle law.” The Day of Reckoning If Australia did not succeed in this war they would become slaves, and would continue to produce materials of all kinds to enrich the German overlords, said General Blarney. Germany's desire to control the markets and produce of the world was not a sudden development. All the German mind for years had been concentrated on bringing it about. The Germans’ concentrated will and effort were carrying them forward. They worked long hours, and many of their women were working. Half the women in Berlin were making shells. Until Australians could develop that same concentration of mind and develop that will and determination to win, they would not be able to meet these people, who regarded Hitler as a demigod. Referring to his troops from the Turkish border to Tobruk, Sir Thomas Blarney said: “We hope soon that v/e will start to make our reckoning, and that victory will be ours. It cannot be ours unless you back us to the utmost limit.”