DEFENCE PROGRAMME

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 17 March 1937, Page 6

DEFENCE PROGRAMME

——- STEPS IN SOUTH AFRICA AIRCRAFT AND INDUSTRIES South Africa will have 200 first-class fighting and bombing aeroplanes by April, 1938. as well as 50 to 60 training aircraft, and air liners capable of being converted into bombers at short notice, states the Parliamentary correspondent of the Johannesburg “Star." At the end of five years tire Union’s air strength should be more than douoied, anci will t>e served by 5000 mechanics and 1000 fully-trained pilo! s. The British Air Ministry ‘has offered to supply the Union with military aircraft on exceptionally generous terms. It is now stated that the Air Ministry is in a position to deliver 100 Hawker Harts (bomber-fighters) between the end of the year and April, 1938. Meanwhile. the Union authorities are building 100 Hawker Harts and these should also be ready for use by April next year. This programme will bring the total of military aircraft in the Union to 300. In addition, the British Air Ministry will deliver a flight of seven of the very latest interceptor-fighters, which have a maximum speed of more than 300 miles an hour. Their performance is still an Air Ministry secret. Some of them, if not all, should be delivered in the Union by April 1938. The new programme is considerably more ambitious than that outlined in the House Assembly last session by the Minister of Defence. A War Supplies Board has been established under Colonel Hoare. The function of the board is to survey the industrial possibilities of the Union for military purposes, and to create an industrial mobilisation plan to ensure a supply of stores without dislocation civil requirements in the event of war. The capacity of established industries to produce military equipment hitherto imported, including trench mortars and their ammunition, steel helmets, gas masks, rifle barrels, bul-let-proof tyres for armoured vehicles, bombs, artillery ammunition, hand and rifle grenades, armoured cars and steel shields for mortars and machine guns will be investigated.