PARASHOTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1940, Page 7

PARASHOTS

VOLUNTEERS IN GREAT BRITAIN PREPARING FOR INVASION. DUTIES OF NEW ARMY. My active duties as a Local Defence Volunteer began at 9 o’clock at night, two hours after I had volunteered, been accepted into the corps, and had attested my willingness to serve his Majesty faithfully, writes the London correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald." The duties which began so quickly were by no means nominal. I was issued with a rifle, a bayonet, and a brassard, and with nine other volunteers 1 was detailed to mount guard over the local telephone exchange. Our guard ceased al 5 a.m. today, long after the dawn had dispersed the darkness which is the chief ally of the Fifth Columnist and of the aerial invader.

My home is in one of the rural suburbs of London —a Surrey village which is now part of sprawling Greater London. It is sufficiently rural still for there to be fields and pastures and thickly-wooded commons. The district is important strategically, because in it there is a large aircraft factory and aerodrome where 7.000 workers produce and assemble one of the best of Britain's bombing planes. It is ideal terrain for the air invader. There is enough open country to allow the enemy to land troops, either by parachute or by transport plane, and those troops, unless quickly dealt with, could strike a heavy blow at Britain’s production of war planes. “RAGTIME ARMY.” The L.D.V. —called by the public "parashots,” “parashooters,” and "parashootists.” but by ihe volunteers themselves “the ragtime army”—is part of the answer to the threat of invasion which now hangs over England. When parachutists were used in Scandinavia, the opinion grew that the man-power not already mobilised in the fighting forces should be organised to meet the potential threat to Great Britain. Not for the first time, public opinion was well in advance of Government planning. The invasion of the Low Countries brought the threat nearer home, and one of the first public acts of the new Secretary of State for War, Mr Eden, was the formation of the L.D.V. The parashots are not the main line of defence against aerial invasion. The aim of the Government was to mobilise the men who were too old or too young to be called up with the armed forces, and to use them to relieve serving , soldiers from routine guard duties and to form a scouting force. Chiefly they are being used for routine guard duties, and as an additional observer corps to watch for invaders from the skies. Should those invaders come, it will be the task of the L.D.V. to hold them in check long enough for regular troops to deal effectively with them. AMAZING RESPONSE, The response to the appeal for volunteers was extraordinary—a quarter of a million men in a few days, nearly half a million in a few weeks. In the district in which I live there is a very large artisan and labouring population, but there is also a large number of wealthy upper middle class people. When I went to report to the local headquarters of the L.D.V., I expected to find many of this wealthier section in the corps. I imagined that they would have more leisure than the artisans who are working long hours in industry. I was at once disappointed and cheered. With one or two exceptions the parashots were all workmen. Their sacrifice of leisure to this unpaid service is great. One of the section to which I was attached last night was a sheet metal worker. He told me as we marched the two miles between the telephone exchange and the L.D.V. headquarters that he would begin work at 7.15 a.m. a.m. and finish at 7.30 p.m. It was then 5.30 a.m.. and he had reported at headquarters at 9 p.m. He added that he was now working a six-day week, and expected soon to be working seven days a week. He was one of Kitchener’s Army and had been a sniper. His pleasure in handling a service rifle again was almost as keen as his son’s, a lad of 19, also a volunteer, to whom he spoke of the delicate art of trigger squeezing and breath control. The lad is working in the same factory as his father and working the same hours. WAR VETERANS. The section to which I was attached —nine men and a section leader — was a fairly typical cross-section of the operations. The leader is a former corporal in the regular army and a Mons veteran. There are two lads of 18 and 19. one a law clerk and the other a pharmaceutical apprentice. There are a builder's labourer, a jobbing gardener, a postal sorter, and a cheerful Cockney, who seems to have oeen many things, but who is now working in an aircraft factory. AH these men fought in the last war and none enlisted later than June, 1915. The section of ten was made up by the father and son I have already mentioned and myself—a stray. Australian journalist. With the exception of the three lads, all of us have had military training, and have forgotten much, if not all. of it. Our "Order arms” and “Slope arms" decidedly lacked finish—even the former corporal was none too certain last night whether the correct order to get us out of the headquarters was "Right turn" or "Left turn." The rifles issued to us were the latest pattern service weapons with the store grease still thick on them. Few of us have uniforms, although we hope to get them very soon. We grumbled at this lack of uniforms, but we grumbled even more at the fact that we were not issued with even one round of ammunition. The corporal took complete charge of the ammunition issued to the party.

A guardsman would have sneered at our way of mounting guard over the telephone exchange. It was perhaps a trifle sloppy, but it was effective. A telephonist, who arrived at the exchange a few minutes late, tried to get in without being challenged and recognised. His remarks about the danger of sharp-pointed bayonets were a refreshing interlude in a dull night. I report again for duty in six days. I hope by then to have a uniform, and to have fired as many rounds as I can "scrounge" from a suspicious musketry inspector. My friend the .sniper of 1914-18 is coming to the range with me to give me a short but intensive course of tuition.