MOCK INVASION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1941, Page 6

MOCK INVASION

ATTACK ON BIRMINGHAM BY PARACHUTISTS HOME GUARD DEFENDS CITY. ASSAILANTS DECISIVELY DEFEATED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Dav, 11.55 a.m.) RUGBY, July 13. A force of 2,900 parachute troops which “invaded” Birmingham last night was decisively beaten by the Home Guard, which was entrusted with the military defence of the city. In a big scale exercise, which started with a “severe air raid,” the Home Guard did excellent work and prevented the invaders from penetrating even to the industrial belt of the city. Civil defence workers had to deal with about 200 “incidents.” The land attack started in the early hours of the morning. when some 2,000 parachutists, actually Allied and Regular Army forces, attacked the city from half a dozen different directions. In the early stages the invaders were helped by “fifth columnists,” who had managed to get through the defenders’ lines and had captured a number of positions, but they were continually meeting new detachments of defenders and heavy casualties were inflicted on them. Two companies which came in with a rush at one point, after seizing a railway station, were “ completely annihilated.”