IF WAR CAME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22629, 18 January 1937, Page 6

IF WAR CAME

TRANSPORT IX BRITAIN DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD SECRET PLANS BEING MADE [FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT] London*. dpc. 126 Secret plans are being preparer! f 0 ensure, in ca*e of war. that vit.il inland transport shall carry on l, v road if raihva.vs are bombed. and f rom alternative port' in the if thcig on the east coast, including London are put out of action. They involve revolutionising the whole of the nation's transport system.

Vital railway communications bombed to destruction, docks blown la bits —that is what .Mr. U. Greshasi Cooke, secretary of the British Roa<j Federation, foresees. London. Hull acd every east coast port, he thinks, nu? be virtually closed to traffic. Lil" e Madrid, London may find itself dependent for its food on convoys of lorries ' They would have to come from the western ports—Plymouth. Falmouth Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea.

Liverpool woild be overwhelmed supplying Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands. Glasgow might be Scotland's only serviceable port. ton, Folkestone and Dover would be fully engaged in supplying the needs of an expeditionary force sent abroad A Sudden Change-over One-third of the country's import pass through London docks. Through the Port of London alone 10.000.0(10 I>eople are fed. Hence the view of Sir Arthur Sakter. Director of Ship Requisitioning during the submarine campaign in the last war: ''if London wei? closed by bombs, and also intensive submarine warfare, the country's bi|[. gest problem might be to provide nut ships but alternative ports and efficient inland transport."

In the event of another war, there would be no preliminary period, as in the last. Britain would have to wii]j. stand the full force of air and sulv marine attack from the beginninjt ''We must be prepared beforehand for a complete change-over of shipping and transport." Mr. Gresham Cooke urgei Main Burden on Roads In these preparations four things, lie says, are vital: —Alternative port facilities: "shadow" equipment at "safe" ports, like Falmouth, which would havp to handle an enormously increastd volume of trade; an adequate supply of road transport vehicles, capable of immediate mobilisation; census of all road vehicles, since it is no use sending an oil tanker to fetch a load of butteradequate roads to bear the huge volume of extra traffic.

The main burden of transport in a future war will fall on th<> roads. They are less vulnerable. One direct hit anil a railway line would be closed for dayu, perhaps weeks.