SECRET DEFENCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1939, Page 8

SECRET DEFENCES

THE PANAMA CANAL NEW FORCE OF JUNGLE, SCOUTS. HIDDEN GUNS AND CREWS. VANCOUVER. For the defence of the Panama Canal, the United States has inaugurated a new phase —regiments known as Jungle Scouts. No longer is it felt wise to leave the defence of the canal to sea and air fortifications at the Pacific and Atlantic terminals. Many units are now at work, surveying the jungles, exploring farther and farther east and west of the canal. One group, 1800 strong, with 250 mules, cut a single file trail, fording rivers, laying pontoons through swamps, sleeping in mosquito-infested areas, and came out without a casualty, beyond three mules drowned in the Rio Chagres, where the buccaneer Morgan, in his quest for Panama gold, lost so many of his followers.

The new tactical defence plan provides for infantry, with its Jungle Scout detachments, holding forts unseen from the air, while big guns and bombing aeroplanes attend to the approaches by sea. Secret anti-aircraft gun nests have been placed east and west of the Canal. So dense is the growth that these guns and their crews have not been'spotted from the air in manoeuvres. An incident will serve to illustrate this.

Fifty miles west of . the Canal, an' army of.-infantry, engineers,' chemical units, field artillery and observation: aeroplanes, guarded the approach. They were only five miles from the Pacific. A battalion landed on a Pacific beach, under'cover of darkness, and turning north into the Central American jungle, followed a circuitous route, unseen and unsuspected, passed around the garrison, and' came out on the Pan-American Highway, 40 miles from the Canal, between it and the guarding army. No air observer had caught sight of them! The American War College is now concentrating'on the Canal. The situation in Europe a'nd. the Orient makes it more vital than ever before. The presence off the Panama Canal of scores of Japanese fishing boats leaves no doubt as to the need to meet every possible contingency. It is claimed, for instance, that agents of foreign Powers are seeking information about the exact, under-sea route of the tunnels connecting the fortified islands with the Pacific Coast at the Canal’s entrance. These tunnels, hidden from air bombing, are avenues of supply and communication between the islands and the mainland forts. Instruments are known to exist for “Stethoscoping” an entering ship, and discovering whether it carries a secret undeclared cargo of dynamite or other explosive. Thus, the possibility of some ship being blown up in the locks has been guarded against. Intelligence agents watch all foreign activity throughout Latin America, especially those of Japanese attempts, as in Mexico, to acquire land concessions, under other names, which could be converted into military or air bases. The exact depth, within 200 miles east and west of the Canal, is a navy secret, also all sounding which could be charted and used by submarines in an attempt to land men or aeroplanes, unseen.

There are only a few places where a submerged boat can lay hidden until it noses into the coast. To counteract known activity by agents from abroad, the “prohibited” area of the Canal Zone has been widely extended in recent months.