NEW TYPE OF WAR

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21198, 22 August 1940, Page 4

NEW TYPE OF WAR

NEW ZEALAND TRAINING

WEEK-END ON THE DOWNS MANOEUVRES IN ENGLAND (From the Official War Correspondend attached to the New Zealand Forces in Great Britain). ENGLAND, July 20 Wild raspberries are ripe on the Downs this week-end, and from the brow of the rise where we rested with Margaret in mid-afternoon we could see six or eight parties of pickers; women and children, and one old man leaning on his stick. We could see the sea, too, the English Channel, with the wind blowing in fresh from France—or what was France. The sort of wind that brought William Normandy when Harold’s men awaited him on this same coast. The sort of wind, with a slightly different set, which filled the billowing sails of the Great Armada. A wind for which Napoleon waited weeks in vain. And between yesterday and tomorrow, so

some folk say, another would-be invader will try; for the moon is to be full tonight, or so near it as makes no difference, and the tides are right. Up there this afternoon we were preparing for war in a solitude of peace. It was hard to imagine invasion nearer than the Normans, of whose occupation, and that of the Romans eleven hundred years before them, we could see traces through our glasses. After nearly twenty centuries the footpunts of Caesar’s legions remain part of England; part of the peaceful pattern of green woods and colouring com spread at our feet when we turned to. look back the way we had come. Sturdy Bren Gun Carriers As sunshine chased shadow from field to coppice and out again, loitering a moment yonder by the grey stone wall behind the church tower, we sat silent. Until the corporal, impressed but hungry, remarked that it was an emphatically long time since half-past six breakfast, and we had better push on. Whereupon the driver spoke to Margaret, who, tossing a lively head, swung about on her tracks and clattered off along the ridge. Six or eight miles to the gallon Margaret does, and on a fiat road 35 to the hour when allowed her own way. Where there are no roads she takes to the open country. Other times, other company might be preferable for a long summer’s day on the Downs, in sun and wind. This being the week-end it is, Margaret is a comforting companion. There is not a sturdier Bren gun carrier of her class in England. Others in the squadron have more fanciful names —Phyllis, Southern Cross, Aotearoa —but when it comes to performance Margaret is the equal of any of them. Our force, moving in its three mobile columns, is out for its first full-scale field exercise, the entire personnel travelling on wheels—buses, transport lorries, armoured fighting vehicles, motor-cycles and a few cars. The plan of campaign does not matter. It is practice only. At least, it is intended to be practice; but we are on proper war footing now, and if a need should arise while we are in the field, we could be immediately diverted from exercise to action. Spirit That Matters Points that do matter are the spirit in which the plan will be executed, the keenness or otherwise of the men in the conditions they will be facing for the first time, and the skill with which their officers handle them. Because even for officers with fine service records, as many company commanders and above have had, warfare in the pleasant English countryside would be a new experience. This area in which we are is nothing like Northern France, where the New Zealand Division was last time. Still less is it like Gallipoli, or Palestine, or Egypt, or South Africa. We are training for a new type of warfare—motorised and mechanised—in a new type of country Our exercise embraced embussing and debussing, practice in timed travelling, in halting where not to be seen from the air, and in avoiding aggregations of vehicles. We occupied defensive positions, dug ourselves in, held them against presumed night and dawn attacks, advanced from them, and retired out of them. We reconnoitred new positions, and either covered others occupying them or were ourselves

covered. We posted sentries, sent out patrols and maintained constant air watches. When there was nothing else to do we slept. There was usually something else to do.