GAPS IN DEFENCES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 31 January 1939, Page 7

GAPS IN DEFENCES

AUSTRALIAN POSITION OFFICIAL VIEW ATTACKED UNREALISED FACTS »ne fact that some extravagant statements may recently have been made by members of the United Astralia Party in criticism of our present defence deficiencies has not unnaturally called forth an official rebuke; at the same time there is much in Mr Lyons’s complacent reply that might easily mislead the public into believing that the anxieties expressed regarding the existing situation are unfounded, writes the defence correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald.’’ Mr Lyons complained of critics who were “unarmed with facts.’’ and replied to one identifiable critic by making a statement of his own in which relevant facts were conspicuously lacking and comfortable generalisations abounded. Among the relevant facts are these: (1) The army is crippled by its lack of regular personnel and is perilously short of modern equipment, particularly anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. 12) The Air Force, on the evidence of Sir Edward Ellington’s report alone, lacks truly modern fighting weapons. (3) In the emergency of September the Navy was not only relatively weaker than it was in 1914. but weaker that could actually put to sea than it was in the depths of the depression. ARMY LEADERS ADVICE “I may say,” said Mr Lyons, ‘’regarding the trained troops, that the of the army has conformed to the number laid down by the military advisers of the Government, having regard to the material needs of the army.” This is apparently an indirect way of repeating the widely-known fact that, when re-armament began four years ago, the army leaders impressed the Cabinet that the need for equipment, particularly coastal guns, was so urgent . that it should be given priority. Mr Lyons added: “Now our advisers have told us that more man-power is needed in view of altered circumstances, and we are setting out to raise the strength of the militia to 70.000.” It would be interesting to know whether this was the only advice the military advisers offered; indeed, whether they spontaneously offered this advice at all (Mr Lyons does not say they did). Mr Lyons does not tell the people whether anything was said of the need for vastly more regular officers and instructors to make the training of the hoped-for 70.000 militiamen effective, or whether anything was said of the urgency of the need for regular mobile units to meet the first shock of an attack. On 31st October, Mr Thorby announced that the “immediate defence plans" included the addition of 5000 men to

the permanent strength of the that Mr Lyons says nothing of this plan, which heartened the army as much as the project for doubling the militia, without providing the means of doing so. discouraged t. DURING MOBILISATION Without a regular force, ready for immediate service and made mobile by mechanical vehicles. Australia has no land force with which to meet an attack launched during the weeks that be needed for the mere mobilisaw'.ion of the militia army, apart from the period needed to train and harden it. If the army leaders advised the Government that a plan to douole the militia satisfied the need for “more man-power” Mr Lyons owes it to himself and his colleagues to say so. If they urged the greater necessity for

more regulars, both to strengthen the militia’s training cadre and to form a first-line military force, Mr Lyons, owes it to those leaders to point this out. “Equipment exists for the mobilisation of seven divisions,” says Mr Lyons, but he omits to say that most of it was inherited from the A.1.F., that tanks, armoured cars, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and many other necessities of modern warfare are still missing entirely or present in only negligible numbers after four years of rearmament. Perhaps it has been impossible to get such equipment or essential parts of it from English manufacturers. Perhaps the Government has made strong representations to the British Government to use its influence to expedite the supply of at least a quota of Australia's

needs: but the Government has never) said so. ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS “A new development,” says Mr Lyons, “is the manufacture of antiaircraft guns at Maribyrnong.” The first step towards the manufacture of these guns was taken in 1935, and the first Australian-made gun was tested more than a year ago. Yet. after the September crisis, it was reported that only six anti-aircraft guns in the Newcastle-Sydney-Port Kembla area, and four of those are imported guns acquired years ago. Since the lack of these guns is known it is difficult to see what reasonable eonsidations are preventing the Governltrent from announcing what is delaying the delivery to the army of the guns of which Ministers speak so proudly. Mr Lyons’s placid generalisations about the coast defences ignore the fact that army leaders have long pointed to the urgent necessity for defending Port Kembla, and the fact that the isolated ports of Whyalla and Port Pirie in South Australia, the security of which is vital to the operation of Australian heavy industry, are so unprotected that a single cruiser squadron could break this link in Australian munition manufacture. PLANES ANCIENT AND MODERN It is true, as Mr Lyons says, that' Hawker Demon planes “are still in ex- > tensive use in the Royal Air Force.” ' It is also true that Sir Edward Ellington recommended that the Wirraway, which has a considerably better per- j formance than the Hawker Demon, i should be regarded only as a “tern- j porary expedient.” Neither the j Hawker Demons nor the Avro Ansons j are genuinely modern lighting air- 1 craft, and any air force which uses ; them in fighter or bomber squadrons l knows that it is using makeshifts. “The Avro Anson bombers have the range necessary for bombing opera- j tions against a possible enemy,” said! Mr Lyons, but he said nothing of their! speed. Ironical comment can be found! in the report that though a flight of! Avro Ansons left Darwin two hours! and a half before the visiting Vickers \ Wellesley bombers, the Vickers Wei-, lesleys arrived at Cloncurry first. Mr Lyons did not explain what factors have decided that no better military machines than these should be in Australia. All the public knows is that, in November. 1936. Bristol bombers with a very high performance were ordered for the Australian Air Force, that eighteen months later it was reported that delivery of modern British bombers could not be expected for another eighteen months; that the September crisis found the Air Force lamentably* equipped; and that, in October, news arrived that Bristol J bombers were in service in the Yugo-! slav, Turkish and Finnish air forces.! and in the British Air Force in Irak : (presumably as a counter to the ideri-, tical machines in the Turkish Air Force).