WAR TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 269, 10 February 1941, Page 3

WAR TOPICS

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TRIBUTE BY GENERAL

PRAISE FOR DRIVERS NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT , When General Sir Archibald Warell, Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Forces, made special mention recently of the parts played by transport drivers and the signal service in the British ad\ r ance into Libya, liis Avords Avere a direct tribute to the Avork of hundreds of NcAA r Zealanders. Driving on Rough Country. ■The story of tlu magnificent exploits of the Reserve Motor Transport Company, T ew Zealand Army Service Corps, in the preliminary phase of the offensive has already been told. The unique mechanised charge, in Avhieh tiic Company's driv ers carried British infantrymen to the attack, speeding their heavy lorries up to *0 miles an hour across the tussocky desert and almost under the muzzles of the enemy's guns. Avas an achievement of Avhieh Ncav Zealand may well be proud. By the action of seweral of them in leaping from the trucks Avith the ass,'lulling troops, they stamped their deeds Avith the hallmark of Anzac tradition.

It is fitting, that circumstances should have brought them into the limelight in this way, for their spectacular work in the forefront of operations in the Sidi Barrani area was the climax of nearly seven months' arduous-service in the Western Desert, fn hundreds of thousands of miles of travel, transporting ammunition, food, water, equipment and Avar supplies of everv kind, they helped throughout that period to pave the way to the successful disillusionment of the enemy. Other A.S.C. columns, petrol, ammunition and supply, are similarly engaged in areas further removed from the front. Trucks Their Homes, More often than not, their trucks arc the troops' homes, since they must frequently spend nights on the job. The headquarters "camp" of the A.S.C. Company is likely to be nothing more than an administrative tent or two cookhouses and a scries of short trenches sited haphazardly over a wide area. As a convoy returns from its journey, each truck swings out of line to pull up alongside i trench,, which is the air raid shelter for the driver and his relief. The two men spread their blankets on their vehicle's interior. Signaller's Work. No job seems too big for the Ncav Zealand drivers, and praise for their willingness and efficiency is heard on all sides. Similar warm tributes have been paid to the company of New Zealand Divisional Signals which, in helping to maintain the vital telegraph, wireless and other communications that are the nerve system of the army, has been on duty in the Western Desert even longer than the Army Service Corps. Responsible for some hundreds of miles of the most important line of communication ni the theatre of

operations, the company was assigned to duty iii the desert a few days before Italy entered Hie war. The work of "Signals" in any operation offers little scope for the spectacular. To . the din of battle they add no more noise than tlic staccato chatter of the morse key or the roar of the despatch rider's motor cycle. The swift and sure communication/-; which it is their responsibility to provide, however, .form one of the most "iniporta.nl factors in military successes.OOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

GERMANS TAUGHT BY FRENCH

The French in London are apt to reflect, sometimes sadly, sometimes rather bitterly, when they think upon their men of Vichy, about the arts of modern war now practised by the Germans in which they themselves were pioneers, writes a special correspondent from London. Who remembers that France successfully introduced the parachute itself, for example, since Germany made recent history with parachute troops? At the end of the 18th century Lcnormand, using a cone-shaped parachute, jumped from the tower of Montpellicr Observatory, and after him Blanchard. the French aeronaut, experimented in parachuting objects from a balloon. Perhaps, however, it Avas Andre Jacques Garnerin avliosc performance came nearest to present-'day descents he went up over 2000 feet in a balloon and made a completely successful parachute jump.

Of course, there are far earlier examples of the parachute idea. Leonardo do Vinci AArote about and sketched parachutes.

The Chinese even claim that the notion goes back (o 2208 B.C. when, they say, the Emperor Slum, to escape from a hostile mob surrounding him. jumped from the top of a granary holding oil to two enormous reed. hats.

Tt is known that, such hats were often as much as three feet in diameter. Practical examples., nevertheless, began with the French. Propaganda. In propaganda, one of Hitler's most successful weapons, the. French can also lay claim to earlier successes. A great deal lias been said in London about the pack of playing cards, decorated with the swastika, found in an air raid shelter in London. A Very early French playing card shows the effeminate Henry TIT. as King of Hearts, with long golden hair and carrying a fan, his Queen holding the sceptre. The . French Revolutionaries first removed the crowns from the kings and queens on their cards and later replaced) them altogether by abstract characters, such as Prudence- and Justice. Later, in France, the practice of satirising politicians on playing cards was carried to such lengths that in 1889 it was made illegal. Political packs were, of course, issued in England, too.. There is an example showing Gladstone as king of Hearts and Randolph Churchill as knave of Diamonds.

Frenchmen suggest that the rather quaint Cockney pronunciation of the siren air raid warning as "siyfeen" may go back to French history, since at the beginning of last century a Frenchman named Cagniard de la Tour invented an acoustical instrument for producing musical tones, which lie called a "sirene," probably because it was sounded through water.

AIR RAID FIGHTERS DEMAND FOR FIRE APPLIANCES INCREASING OVERSEAS ORDERS

The stirrup pump now installed in thousands of British households to cope, with incendiary bombs is still being turned out by its biggest makers in Great Britain at the rate of 10.000 a week.

Despite this large output they continue to send many types of firefighting apparatus to Lire, the federated Mia lay States, the Dutch East Indies, Brazil. Palestine, Jew Zealand and India. Up-country townships and outstations, where the high cost of the standard tire engines could not be justified, are increasing their demand for another fire-fighting appliance which has proved invaluable to Britain's civil defence workers during air raids, it is a light trailer pump, easily tisnsportable and comparatively cheap, which because of ; («. 'inrl lov -no!"--,! fry 1- !*-)