GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 March 1941, Page 6

GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

REORGANISATION OF BRITISH ARMY FOLLOWING DUNKIRK EVACUATION. MOCK. INVASION OF BRITAIN STAGED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 12.10 p.m.) RUGBY. March 0. The whole story of the Dunkirk evacuation will, it is expected, soon bo told in Viscount. Gori’s despatches. Meanwhile the Wai - Secretary, Captain R. D. R. Margesson. introducing the army estimates in the House of Commons revealed that, in the retirement to the coast, the army succeeded in withdrawing no less than 85 per cent of its effectives. Captain Margesson added that the transformation effected in the one month of June was perhaps unequalled in the history of the British army. By the end of the month practically the whole of the British Expeditionary Force had been reformed and its units provided with minimum weapons and transports. Breathing space since Dunkirk had been turned to good effect. The wheels

of production are now turning faster and most of the major formations are now comparatively well equipped. Captain Margesson also gave aston-

ishing figures of the Libyan campaign. The capitulation of Benghazi, he said, completed the capture or destruction of the whole Italian army in East Libya, estimated to exceed 150,000. British losses in these and all other operations in the Middle East theatre, including East Africa, between November 30. 1940. and February 11, 1941. totalled 1,774, of which 438 were killed. Emphasising that these operations are but the prelude io greater struggles, the War Secretary turned to home defence. with a reminder to the House that the danger of invasion was vei> real but every possibility open to the ingenuity of the enemy had been considered. Not many weeks ago there was a sham battle, in which all the resources of the State, civil and military, were engaged for one week. He said:

•'The exercise was directed at meeting an imagined attack and for its purpose we called in some of the most brilliant staff officers at our disposal and asked them to take on the role of the German General Staff and make plans to attack this country. The attack was duly launched. This “German staff’’ was housed in special offices and, by a scheme of observers throughout the country, the effect of various waves of attack was noted. Valuable lessons were learned. The ingenuity of this improvised "enemy’’ staff resulted in a scale of aftack greatly exceeding in probability anything the Germans could actually inflict. The “enemy" was allowed to inflict upon us every preliminary disaster which might conceivably come upon us. There were many “landing" by sea and air and continuous air bombardments of our central points was calculated to have caused the breakdown of many means of communications. Notwithstanding this assumption of the worst the defence organisation came through the ordeal with the greatest credit. “It showed," said Captain Margesson, “that we are not sitting tight in our defences but are endeavouring to improve the scheme of static and mobile defence from day to day.” The War Secretary dealt with thr» suggestion that the selection of officers was impartial between the different classes of society. “An analysis.” he said, “of commissions given from a selection of infantry officer cadet train-j ing units shows that, for the period from September 27 to December 27. 1940, 76 per cent of successful pupils came from what are known as the public schools. The balance of 24 per cent came from grammar, country or secondary schools and of these about 9 per cent had had university education. An examination of the civil occupations of candidates for the same period was also interesting. They included a publican, a tailor, a doctor, an optician, a labourer, a racehorse trainer, a rope J maker, a grocer, and fireman and a | barrister.” J