SENT TO ORIENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 February 1941, Page 3

SENT TO ORIENT

BRITISH AIR MARSHAL SIR ROBERT BROOKE-POPHAM. CALLED ON BY BRITAIN IN EMERGENCIES. 1 It is by no means just because the I air service looms predominant in the i present war that an Air Chief Mari shat. Sir Robert Brooke-Popham. lias ■ been made Britain's Commandcr-in-i Chief in the Far East. Sir Robert, who recently arrived at Singapore, is one of the sort who emerge when crises face the British. Empire, states lite "Christian Science Monitor." Generally credited with being one of the originators of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, he came out to Onawa with the British Air Mission in the fall of 1939 when the present gigantic enterprise with training schools right across Canada and swarms of airmen keeping hundreds of ’planes in the air daily, was merely being talked about. Possibly no one man has done more organising of military air developments. Only remaining officer left of the Air Battalion that preceded the World War. he started the Royal Air Force Staff College in. England, was Commandant of the Imperial Defence College from 1931 to 1933. and spent the succeeding two year'; as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief. Air Defence of Great Britain. CIVIL POST IN IRAQ.

Il was when Sir Robert was in Iraq, as head of the Iraq Air Command in 1928. that the sudden death of the High Commissioner caused him to step into the post in an acting capacity. This was his first service as a civil administrator. By 1938 he was occupying one of the most difficult posts in the British Colonial Service—Governor of Kenya Colony. British East Africa, the most “temperamental” colony the Empire has ever possessed. Both in London and in Nairobi he is rated probably the most successful Governor Kenya has ever had.

There he found a country mamlj suitable to farming, inhabited by r million or so aboriginal blacks and :■ few thousand whites, none of whom were farmers; retired army, navy and civil officers, younger sons and explot ers. Though Kenya possesses an elected assembly, it is in perpetual minority to the Government, and the Colony is governed by Great Britain through a Governor. who is the real authority. Kenya came near to staging a second Boston tea party hi the early twenties. The settlers, not lilting cerain legislation, originating in England, innounced to the then Governor that he day it went into effect they would jundlc him with his whole staff on he first boat headed for England and proceed to run the country themselves. They could have done it. too. because 'very settler had to be a hunter with .guns and ammunition to stave wild i game off his crops and cattle. Needi less to say. the proposed legislation i never went into effect. This episode I indicates the sort of community Sir ! Robert was later well able to handle. GERMANS ROUNDED UP. With the crisis of September, 1938, Kenya hastily organised itself for the worst. This Sir Robert found a useful dress rehearsal, and when war actually broke out. comprehensive machinery of organisation was ready for action. The day war was declared. Sir Robert rounded up every German in tite country, and this was :i group as large as Canada’s entire lot of interned aliens at the end of a year of wat. The black population gave not a threat of trouble of any kind, but i weto deeply impressed by the mop- : pin;' up of the German population, without a shot being tired, since many' of them could remember the hot fighting in East Africa during the World War. when Germany began in possession of w.hat is now Tanganyika, next door to Kenya Colony Sir Robert commandeered every i aeroplane in the country, a consider-! able number of private planes, and the’ whole of the Wilson Air Line, which now form, part of a small bitt wellorganised Kenya Air Force, whose ex-i ploits against the Italians are continually chronicled in the news. Sir Robert also had worked out a scheme for keeping the farms running. ■ the fields producing both for food and for export Kenya adopted universal; .ert.ee. all white males registered and' listed tis to physical fitness and gen- i oral capacity. A central exeeuUv.-j was established in the capital. Nnirab : with the job of seeing to it that all farms were financed and furnished : with the necessary seed, equipment, and labour for the duration Black-, continued tn do the manual labour. Farms were then handled in groups,; with one white supervisor, perhaps a man physically unfit far active set--; vice, above age limit, or merely s o much more useful as a farm administrator that h<* was not permitted to; leave his post. In other words, tinned only with authority thnt he viiuld never execute against tli<- will of t’minlt; bitunis. Sir Robert put through .. , complete mubilistilinn of the country, manpower, transport farms and all. LONG SERVICE IN FRANCE. Sir Robert reached France in the World War on August 12. 19;-;, anti left early in February 1919 .After returning to England earl)' 1940. when thi- i-iwtm .or tt.ottmg' agreement had been ncrvpted. Sr. Robert was sent out to South A trio, tm : similar mission w hniso-i i.tlio-:'-m-chaf to lb.- South Afi <■ ■. A.- -. rlti 11- h,tt .o iiL< o C >i' <’ < through a leisurely nip to the coast,; inspecting all th»- tn-iimtg field sm-s i i’<-!!mg the tool of th'- v. uir.w n- d e. . doubt miik.m; m.mt.d not. n <: a- v riUiliV Sllbjp? *■ itf-- - 2’’. ••i 1 A. it; , t i.i * ■ lb- n- w k'.u.w Af ■ ! . • • d from every angle, Africa has much , : "a- <;. ■ mat:, -o-rv-’d ; w f Go. many's llni-e „cc.,;i,ph hm< c. ’ a >• must bo ma:;-' Gi-irinr.' ..... a ( .j,. ... die rid who w-.ald be m->vou to. ;O.< ht-; : r So- R, ,G-G - ;0,.. : ,J ~< the i ottirdmlici: tin ; ■ j _■.» t juGWould have ia -o. '! << ,dl'. I .'.tod !. world a- hard they are now do-