AMERICAN ARMY

Southland Times, Issue 25367, 20 August 1935, Page 7

AMERICAN ARMY

BIG-SCALE MANOEUVRES DEFENCE OF EASTERN STATES IMAGINARY INVASION (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 10.10 p.m.) New York, August 18. The north-eastern section of the United States, comprising the New England States of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, became a war zone to-day when 75,000 troops concentrated at strategic points prepared to repel an enemy. Of course all this was imaginary, but the military authorities are taking the manoeuvres most seriously on the theory that if the country was ever attacked on the Atlantic side the wealthy north-eastern industrial area would most likely be the chief objective of an enemy. Conditions simulating war _as nearly as possible were invoked during the manoeuvres, which were on the largest scale in America’s peace-time history. Hundreds of tanks, armoured cars, mobile machine-gun units, heavy artillery and aeroplanes have concentrated in the war zone within the last few days. Two thousand five hundred taxi-cabs pressed into the transport service here moved an entire division of 8000 men to camp 400 miles distant within ten hours.