CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26980, 15 January 1949, Page 7

CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT

BRUSSELS PACT DEFENCE CHIEFS MANY PROBLEMS DISCUSSED NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 14. Co-operation between the five Brussels Pact nations is taking form well ahead of schedule, says the News Chronicle correspondent writing from Fontainbleaux. It is largely due, he continues, to the unexpected speed with which representatives of the three separate services of the five countries have merged themselves into one great planning machine. Overseeing this “ workshop of western defence.- ’-is Field-marshal Lord Montgomery, who is now planning to direct armies' bigger than he did at any time during the last war. The problems under discussion, the correspondent continues, include the standardisation of weapons and equipment, standardisation of signals and communications, of road transport vehicles, specialisation by particular countries, in particular armament construction—and looming over everything else the creation of a common strategy. The language difficulties in regard to the air forces was one problem faced. This problem was solved by the introduction of a uniform code system so that ground controllers of any nationality could talk to pilots whether they are British, French, Belgian or Dutch. A similar code language is being developed for warships of the Western Union navies. When this is perfected, ships, including battleships, air-craft-carriers and submarines of the British. French and Dutch navies will take part in combined exercises. Naval co-ordination, the correspondent says, between the Western Powers is already ahead of that in the other two services and the outstanding feature about the Fontainbleau conference is the realisation of the value of combined rather than individual operations by the three services. “There is another point important, in a different way. It is that an entirely new mental approach and attitude between the western armed forces, based on mutual trust and sincerity, has developed out of the babel of tongues in this new nerve centre of Western European defence,” the correspondent concludes.