How Invader Should Be Dealt With

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 2, 3 January 1941, Page 2

How Invader Should Be Dealt With

NEW ZEAXiAND PLANS GENERAL RUSSELL DESCRIBES LINE OF ACTION The need for collecting all possible reserve equipment for training purposes was stressed by Mujor-General Sir Andrew Russell, K.C.8., K.C.M.G. Inspect-or-General of the New Zealand Forces and acting Chief of the General Staff, when addressing National Reservists at Hamilton. That would serve to go on with until New Zealand might be able to secure a share of the war equipment which, he said, the Italians had so kindly handed over to the Empire in the Western Desert and Libya. Dealing with the importance of New Zealand’s defensive work, MajorGeneral Russell said it would be necessary for the defending forces of the Dominion to pounce upon any invader the moment he alighted from his ships. If he were allowed to penetrate inland, it would be more difficult still to drive off the attack. Maps would be available shortly of all of the New Zealand coast, so that National Military Reservists, for their part, would be able to lind their way without difficulty. «'Cat-and-mouse Game” In the defence of New Zealand Major-General Russell expected that the land forces would be fighting in small batches, say, in sections or in platoons at the most. Certainly defence would not be in the old-fashioned manner of having thousands of men located in trenches, ready to jump over the top at the zero hour. Defending New Zealand would be, he considered, a cat-and-mouse game. Throughout the action there would have to be the closest co-operation among officers, section leaders and men. He impressed upon the National Reservists that they might have to be prepared to tackle enemy tanks with hand grenades and such weapons. He stressed, too, the need of keeping fit. £f a soldier was not fit, he was not a fit soldier. Three Defined Stages If New Zealand were likely to be inf *aded, the nation, he said, would enter upon three Refined stages—preparedness, precautionary, and finally, the alert. These were outlined briefly by Major-General Russell. The company which he was addressing was an inland company, and the particular work which it would be called upon to undertake in the.event of threatened invasion would probably be that of being moved out to some point near the coast as reinforcements. Military units on the coast, drawn from the Territorial Army, would already have been upon the stage of alertness and the National Military Reserve might then have to be prepared to back them up upon the beaches. Major-General Russell asked the company to imagine that a Power likely to invade' New Zealand took aggressive action which could be construed as a threat to this Dominion. Then the Dominion forces would be transformed from the stage of preparedness through which they were now passing in training to the stage of precaution. Then would come mobilisation, the Territorial Army being called up first, and probably the National Military Reserve would be next to ensure that they were in a fit stage to move at a moment’s notice. If, during this precautionary stage, Major-General Russell added, the country became aware that enemy vessels were believed to be cruising in or near New Zealand territorial waters, the nation would enter upon the stage of alertness. Such a warning, he considered, could be expected about two days before an invasion would break. By then all the defence forces would be in position. « It was very much a matter for guessing, but he considered New Zealand should receive about one and a-half hours’ warning of any actual arrival of enemy ships of