The Southland Times THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1942. New Methods and New Men

Southland Times, Issue 24685, 5 March 1942, Page 4

The Southland Times THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1942. New Methods and New Men

ONE OF THE few fortunate happenings in the Malayan campaign was the escape of MajorGeneral Gordon Bennett from Singapore. Major-General Bennett has the reputation of being a soldier of robust and independent spirit, and the report he is preparing for the Australian Government on the fighting in Malaya should be of immense value. An interview quoted this morning in a cable message from Sydney makes it clear that the central theme of his report will be the need for a drastic overhaul of military methods. The theme is one which is at the present time being echoed and re-echoed throughout the British Empire. “We are in pressing need of weapons,” says the London Daily Express, “but we are in equally pressing need of men who can handle them and think in terms of them.” In Invercargill on Tuesday Captain Chaplain Sansom, recently returned from the Middle East, told the Rotary Club substantially the same story. In Australia Major-General Bennett has spoken of the need for discarding “the complicated system we have evolved in our army which operates against easy and rapid co-ordina-tion.” He has attributed the Australians’ success against the Japanese to their “throwing overboard 1918 text-book methods,” and has laid down as the only answers to Japanese tactics, “aggressive inspiration from the top and brilliant junior leadership.” Those who thought that these lessons were learned in the Battle of France know now that they were not learned, or were learned incompletely. In too many places 1918 text-book methods are still being taught, and 1918 text-book leaders are still in charge. There is all too little “aggressive inspiration from the top,” and “brilliant junior leadership” is too often stifled. The British Commonwealth, fighting for its life, can no longer escape the need for revolutionizing its military methods. The time has come when seniorities and personal reputations must be disregarded and younger men, who have studied the 1942 military text-books on the 1942 field of battle, must be brought to the top. We referred a few days ago to the appointment of Major-General Mead to the command of Fiji, and we pointed out that while MajorGeneral Mead is a soldier with a splendid reputation he has had no actual experience of present-day warfare. The men whom the Government should be placing in command of Fiji, and in the senior commands in New Zealand, are men of the type of Brigadier Kippenberger and Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. Page. Lieutenant-Colonel Page is now in New Zealand, and as soon as he recovers his health he should be placed in a position where he can give the home defence forces the direct benefit of his experience of modern warfare. It is surely possible to spare other men of this type from the Expeditionary Force now that the Dominion is threatened with invasion. Indeed, it is imperative that they should be spared if New Zealand is to give a worthy account of herself in the struggle that may come within a few months—or a few weeks.