AIR TROOP CARRIERS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 January 1929, Page 2

AIR TROOP CARRIERS.

LARGE BRITISH ’PLANES. USE IN EMPIRE DEFENCE.

LONDON, Jan. 4. In view of their value in obviating the movement of troops over ground which might be the cause of frontier warfare, interest attaches to the observations of the aeronautical correspondent of “The Times” regarding the employment of aerial troop-carriers for the rescue of the women beleaguered at Kabul.

“The incident,” he says, “brings into prominence a little known development, namely, large aeroplanes available to rush armed soldiers to quell an incipient rising at an isolated outpost, or to smoothly transport sick or wounded men ffe well-equipped base hospitals, hundreds of miles from the firing line. No other nation has aircraft of a similas class.

“There are flights of Vickers-Victoria ’planes in Irak capable of carrying 16 infantrymen. These express a vital principle of Empire defence, providing > for the control of disturbed country, not by the maintenance of large bodies of troops in fortresses, but by the establishment of small outposts that can be swiftly reinforced from a strategic base hundreds of miles away. “Even more important is the dispensing with lines of communication, which necessitate expensive guarding. “India possesses no troop-carriers, but three days would suffice to rush them from Irak.” The writer cites instances where troop-carriers speedily suppressed Irak risings which, lacking air control, might have developed into rebellions, I demanding expensive operations. I