THIS WAR AND LAST

Camp News, Volume 2, Issue 89, 12 September 1941, Page 7

THIS WAR AND LAST

Differences Told To 1914-18 Veterans

COLONEL ROW’S ADDRESS

Following the 1 war on nerves on diplomats and politicians which preceded the actual conflict this was continued in the war itself in pursuance of the German tactics of creating confusion and panic, said Colonel R. A. Row D. 5.0., N.Z.S.C., in a talk -F a luncheon of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association. Colonel Row made the point of his address the difference between the Great War and the present war. He returned recently from the Middle East where he studied modern warfare conditions at the request of the Government.

' Colonel Row, referring to Greece said that in no case was the New Zealand Division forced or driven out of a position by the Germans who, on the start of the war. had 26 divisions in Bulgaria. In Greece the British had the 6th Australian Division, the New Zealand Division and a British armoured brigade.- It was intended to have another Australian Division for the Greek campaign, but it had to be diverted when the Germans moved in Cyrenaica. This same division was now holding Tobruk. The retreats in Greece were due to the Germans getting through the Monastic Gap, outflanking the Greeks and forcing a gen eral retirement to -the beaches

The last war was a trench warstatic. In that way it differed from previous wars, as machine-guns an J wire made it impossible for cavalry to force a war of movement. It was really the tanks, which were the modern cav airy arm,’which gave the power to nations t-» make a war of movement. That was what Hitler was doing, ana he had any amount of tanks to use in piercing defensive positions _ and get ting behind opposing forces.

Tanks were effective, however, only in certain types of country. In a mountainous country such as Greece they were largely restricted to the roads. In mountainous count! v Hitler used alpine troops, which had beerconsiderably developed since the Great War. They had been specially trained and equipped for mountain warfare,

not only with the ordinary infantry weapons but with ropes and skis to ne gotiate mountains in any weather. In that way they got above and behind defensive positions, firing on them from the rear and flanks. This caused confusion, in which circumstances the tendency"was to get out. ■ Little Damage by Dive Bombing. Dive or ordinary bombing had noth ing like the material effect of shellfire and in no case in the Greek campaign had the artillery fire been any thing like it was in France in the Great War. Dive-bombing was definitely effective on morale and created the. “wind-up” till troops became used to it and real ized it could do little damage. As an instance the 6th Field Regiment, dug in in slip trenches, was bombed for half an hour by 36 planes and the only damage done was one man wounded Every gun was still in action. There had been a determined airbombing attempt by the Germans to destroy a pass road, even using 1060pound bombs, but without hitting it once. The nearest to a hit was five fee! off the road, where a crater 42 feet wide and 32 feet deep was created. This pass had been held by Major-General I’uttick’s brigade. At night, in pursuance of their endeavours to affect morale, the Germans used incendiary bullets,from machineguns. At one stage the 21st Auckland Battalion was returning toward Larissa with the Germans covering the road with machine-guns. The incendiary bullets did no more damage than an ordinary bullet, but they were in all sorts of colours. Seeing green, red, white and other coloured bullets coming toward them did, however, assist to “put the wind up troops.” It was the same with bombing, when troops could see the planes come over, circle round, locate their target and then release the bombs, which could be seen coming down. There a man had the familiar sensation of thinking every one was aimed for him.

Colonel Row said he was convinced that the Germans did not bomb villages just to kill civilians in cold blood, but to drive the population on to the roads and so create difficulties for the opposing military traffic. It was the same with the bombing of a hospital in Crete, which was erected on the best piece of reasonably flat land there was for use by the Germans in landing their troop-carrying aircraft and parachute troops. They bombed the hospital be-

cause they wanted to clear the land. Comparing infantry in this war and the last, Colonel Row said that the infantryman still had the same amount of messing about, marching this way and that, digging trenches and putting up wire. lie still did a good deal of marching, perhaps not as much as was the case in 1914-18, and was taken the longer distances by motor transport. The infantryman was more specialized, for, in addition to rille and bayonet, there were the Bren gun and two-inch and three-inch mortars. Signallers used line telegraph and a considerable amount of wireless communication which had not proved satisfactory in Greece, probably because of the mountainous country. Thus, the primary means of communication were much the same as in the Great War. Captain J. S. Hanna, moving the vote of thanks to Colonel -Row, said it was a special pleasure to men of the old Canterbury Regiment in the Great War to have him as a speaker.