GERMAN PLANS FOR WAR BEFORE 1939: BARRACKS BUILT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22948, 17 May 1949, Page 4

GERMAN PLANS FOR WAR BEFORE 1939: BARRACKS BUILT

“Was Germany preparing for war in the years before 1939, or was she forced into the Second World War by England’s declaration of war on September 3, 1939?”

This question was effectively answered by Mr. J. E. Bayley, formerly of Gisborne and for nearly two years a member of the British Army of Occupation in Germany in 1946 and 1947, in speaking to members of the Gisborne Rotary Club at their weekly luncheon yesterday. For some time Mr. Bayley was stationed in Westphalia and was housed in barracks built in 1938 to accommodate 7500 troops. The barracks was only one of many large units scattered throughout Germany, said Mr. Bayley. Each barracks was divided into seven blocks and each block had been erected as a separate unit in about two months by a gang of men who had done nothing else for years. Last Word In Comfort

“Three-storeys high, the barracks buildings were the last word in comfort,” continued Mr. Bayley. “The roof was an 18in. lawer of concrete built to prevent any incendiary bombs from touching the buiding. Hooks let into the roof allowed camouflage nets to be spread over the buildings.” The barracks could be compared with a young township, continued the speaker, but the whole of the lighting of the area could be by a master switch in a control room. To provide emergney power a large submarine-type Diesel motor had been installed in an underground room. The cellars beneath all the blocks were fitted with gas-proof doors. Steam was used for cooking and heating, while the garages and workshops attached to the barracks were fitted with very modern appliance. German civilians did all the fatigue work and much of the dirty work in the workshops, continued Mr. Bayley. He described the life of an English soldier in Germany, at least in the early stages of the occupation, as “that of a gentleman.” “Food, even for the troops, was difficult to obtain during the first winter,” recalled Mr. Bayley, “and it was a case of living mainly on dehydrated vegetables. Conditions improved in the second year, however, and the_ troops were allowed to bring their families to Germany.”