LORD MONTGOMERY WILL LEAD WESTERN ARMIES IN EUROPEAN EMERGENCY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26959, 20 December 1948, Page 5

LORD MONTGOMERY WILL LEAD WESTERN ARMIES IN EUROPEAN EMERGENCY

N ZPA—Copyright Rec. 9 p.m. WASHINGTON, Dec. 18. In the event of a European emergency, the United States occupation troops in Germany, as well as the armies of the five Western Union Powers, will be placed under Fieldmarshal Lord Montgomery, according to a detailed agreement drawn up in London and sent to Washington for review, says the London correspondent of the New York Times, Benjamin Welles. Welles says his information comes from “ a highly-placed source,” who said that Lord Montgomery would lead these forces at least' until a permanent theatre commander was appointed. The correspondent adds that the appointment of a supreme commander for the European theatre will probably not be made except in the event of war. Nobody thinks war is imminent or even probable, but Western Union military experts have been working for the last six months with the conviction that full defence preparations are the best deterrent to aggression.

The appointment of a permanent theatre commander in the event of war would be decided at the highest level, but agreement is believed to exist at operation level that if an American was chosen his deputy would be British, and' vice versa. There is no attempt to hide the fact that the Western Union probably will not have its full complement of ground divisions, military equipment, air strength, and industrial backing for two or three years. Meanwhile, American air power is the shield under which the 35 to 40 divisions necessary for the adequate defence of Western Europe must be raised, trained, and equipped. Official military crcles in Washington would not comment on Welles’s report, but Ihe New York Times quotes military sources in Washington as saying that authority to make a conditional agreement on operational commands had already been given to General Lucius Clay, the United States Military Governor in Germany.