LONDON’S DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1939, Page 11

LONDON’S DEFENCE

POSITION DURING RECENT CRISIS. SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS MADE. Barely one hundred guns guarded London’s 10,000.000 people during the Czechoslovak war crisis, and half of these were no good, and more dangerous to the population than to attacking aircraft. 1

This revelation was made by Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, one of Britain’s foremost military experts, at an emergency youth peace conference in London. Paris, he declared, had 700 guns. Note: The population covered by London’s air defence organisation is 10,000.000. Population of greater Paris is 5.000,000. This gives Paris 14 guns to London’s one.

“Much worse,” said Captain Liddell Hart, “was the state of the guns issued from the Ordnance Department. “Of the guns available, only onesixth were the new type, and only half were fit to be fired.

“Defence was improvised with various weapons, which would be much more dangerous to civilian life and property than to attacking aircraft.” Captain Liddell Hart said there could be no harm in giving the facts about London’s guns because “the paucity of our defences has inevitably been revealed to foreign observers, who must be aware of the position of every gun.” The captain was opening a discussion on foreign policy. He said the defects revealed in Britain’s defence were undoubtedly a justification if nothing else for inducing Czechoslovakia to accept Germany’s demands. “There are far too many defects revealed in the organisation of the R.A.F.,” he said “It is essential to make air defence as strong as possible. National service is suggested as the panacea, but Britain needs brains and machines rather than numbers of men.”

Captain Hart suggested that youth should co-operate with anything that fostered freedom.

Delegates from the Young Liberals, the Labour League of Youth, the League of Nations Youth Groups and the Young Communist League discussed a statement of policy which: — Condemned the betrayal of Czechoslovakia; declared that the key to peace now lies in the defeat of aggression in Spain; supported President Roosevelt's World Conference call and demanded an embargo on loans and credits to Italy, Germany and Japan. Improvement of A.R.P. was called for and support for any form of voluntary service was promised, once a guarantee was given that youth policy would be carried out.

Plans for a campaign were outlined at the conference, and recommendations for joint action agreed to. The draft policy adopted will be circulated to all youth organisations for discussion.