PROGRESS WITH DEFENCES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 98, 25 March 1939, Page 9

PROGRESS WITH DEFENCES.

SOUTH AFRICAN ARMS. AID FROM BRITAIN. CAPETOWN, March 23. The Defence Minister (Mr 0. Pirow), in his annual statement on defence in tho Assembly to-day, said that the British Government had generously enabled South Africa’s most urgent requirements to be met. Hie position with regard to arms and equipment had greatly improved. South Africa would soon he able to satisfy her own ammunition requirements. She now had 2080 an pilots, two bomber and two fighting squadrons, five training squadrons one reconnaissance squadron and troop-carrier squadron. Each squadron, with reserves, comprised 25 ’planes, Mr Pirow said. Tho Union, went on Air 1 irow, possessed 12 batteries of artillery. Man power was available at short notice and could bo doubled. Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Walvis Bay and East Ixmdon would have 15 and 9.2-inch gunsThe Admiralty was lending H..M.S. Erebus, which was being reconditioned at a cost to South Africa of £IOO.OOO. She was expected to arrive on September 1 and would be manned by naval personnel till a South African crew was trained, the Minister added. Tho Government’s plan, Mr Pirow added, included the mobilisation of industries and measures to cheek profiteering. The Union, he said, was exceeding the suggestions of the Imperial Defenco Committee as regards coast defence.