BAYONET OBSOLETE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 179, 1 August 1941, Page 5

BAYONET OBSOLETE

AMERICAN CRITIC'S VIEW URGES CREATION OF AN ANZAC FORCE AUSTRALIA AND N.Z. UNDER ONE COMMAND. (Press Assn.) Auckland, July 31. Fusing of the New Zealand and Australian overseas forces into on command. was strongly recommended by Mr. James Aldridge, New York Times war correspondent, whose repeated successes since the outbreak of war have won him a high reputation in his field. Mr. Aldridge, who has also been writing for some Australian newspapers, is passing through Auckland with the intention of reaching Moscow to cover the war on the Russian front. “An Anzac force," said Mr. Aldridge, "could easily become the best shock troops in the world. "A combined force would give both the Australians and New Zealanders their maximum effectiveness. The New Zealand Division is too small, that is as a single unit, to make a really effective contribution toward beating the Germans, which the men arc individually capable of making. If we do this, if we change the training methods and give them the equipment they must have, then nothing in the world could stop an Anzac force, but we have Io realise that, the Germans have methods which outdate ours. "We have regarded the bayonet," said Mr. Aldridge, "as the focal point around which the infantryman's training must be concentrated. The use of the bayonet, by our training methods, is the peak of the soldier's fighting purpose. All his training centres on the assumption that when he lights he uses his rifle and bayonet, i 1 should say. in this war, that about 1 per cent, use the bayonet. 1 have

not yet spoken to a man who could tell me that he has used his bayonet on an enemy, or fired a bullet al a given individual enemy target."