“IF WAR HAD COME”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21179, 28 October 1938, Page 9

“IF WAR HAD COME”

GERMANY’S PLANS IN CRISIS Ready on Land and in the Air Details Revealed in Nazi Press Overwhelming Army of Occupation United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph —Copyright (Received October 27, 11.50 p.m.) BERLIN, October 27. Major Von Wedel, head of the German War Office Press Department, in an article appearing in a number of German provincial newspapers, for the first time reveals the number of German troops employed in the occupation of Sudetenland, namely 30 divisions (about 450,000 men), of which half were attached to motorised divisions. Considerable forces were also held in reserve, in case the occupation did not preoeed peacefully. Five hundred military aircraft actually participated in the occupation, but this was “only a fraction of the machines held ready and which could immediately have been brought into action if war had developed.” Hundreds of antiaircraft batteries were posted around the whole frontier so that “the Soviet and Czech bombers could hardly have succeeded in penetrating Germany.” Precautions were also taken against Anglo-French attacks. The article further states that the new western fortification was capable of protecting Germany from any land attack, and the necessary measures were also taken against air attack. FLOODLIKE OUTPUT OF ARMS MR CHAMBERLAIN’S SPEECH RECALLED United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received October 28, 1.21 a.m.) LONDON, October 27. The Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence (Sir Thomas Inskip), in a speech at Stubbington said: We are now in the middle of a three years’ rearmament programme and the output has reached a scale which may fairly be described as floodlike. When Mr Chamberlain told the House of Commons there were gaps in our defences, he told me he was guilty of excess of honesty, but he does not regret the statement. Only the rarest optimist expects no gaps, as the end of rearmament is not yet within sight.