AMAZING GROWTH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 February 1943, Page 4

AMAZING GROWTH

NEW ZEALAND ARMY MATERIAL POURING IN. CONTRAST WITH CONDITIONS IN 1940. As the tempo of battle rises everywhere with the opening of 1943, and we in New Zealand see all around us the signs of a nation at war, one s mind slips back across more than two years of Army service to note the contrast of then and now in arms, equipment and training. As yet, of course, the full story of the amazing growth of our military resources in New Zealand cannot be told, but some aspects of it, as one soldier has seen it, may be of interest. Mobilisation Camp, October, 1940, and almost an historic aura about the equipment one received overcoat made in 1917; web equipment pattern of 1907, and manufactured in 1916; tin hat that had already been > in battle more than 20 years before; rifle long encased in grease, and a scarred veteran as to some of its parts. And those not to have and to hold some of the items had to be passed on to incoming units for their training. Ammunition was scarce, firing practices few, armoured vehicles (represented solely by Bren carriers) unusual sights. That we even had that much was perhaps remarkable. Remember that the Battle of France was lost, the miracle of Dunkirk performed, and Britain was concentrated on staving off defeat under the ceaseless hammering of the blitz. Through 1941 the drain on material went on, in the fluctuating struggle in Libya, the fierce fighting in, and eventual withdrawal from Greece and Crete, to say nothing of the urgent rearmament programme which had to be carried out in Britain itself. ARMOURED UNITS. Still, one began to see advances in 1941, as, despite an ever-increasing call on Allied production everywhere, and the building up of the Army in New Zealand to unprecedented numbers, personal arms and equipment on a modern scale were provided. More light armoured vehicles began to appear with the Territorial units, and the first tanks were seen in this coun-try-just a few, certainly, coincident with the formation of the N.Z. Armoured Fighting Vehicles School, and the creation of the N.Z. Army Tank Brigade, based on what is today New Zealand’s biggest camp. In itself that camp is a token of the progress made. Two years ago the first permanent buildings hardly showed upon the original country side. Today it is a modern town, standing on the edge of scores of thousands of acres upon which Nature has provided all the vagaries of terrain necessary for training the variegated services of a modern army. Through 1942 one was privileged to witness some of the fruits of perseverance, organisation and training which have gone to provide an effective fighting force for the Dominion, while still maintaining a full contribution to the Allied military pool in the far places of the earth. Here are some vignettes of training in New Zealand which stand out in one’s memories of the year just passed:— Scores of tanks making a devil’s din as they manoeuvre out across the waste of scrub and tussock to radioed orders from field headquarters. Tanks spitting shells and bullets into moving targets. A Scarlet Pimpernel (“now you see it, now you don’t”) view of the horizon from a tank during manoeuvres. Fifteen ton transporters with a 25-ton tank load on a 200 mile trip. LIGHT TANKS. In another part of the country, a Iqng line of light tanks being taken over by a Light Armour Fighting Vehicle Regiment for duty in New Zealand. In many places, tracked carriers rolling across country in support of infantry equipped with—well, all the modern small arms you have heard of. Infantry, training in another role, roughing it in the back country, using their weapons to provide food. A brigade and more of mechanised field artillery raising the dust over miles of road on a cross country convoy, guns and limbers swaying behind the queer looking “quads” which tow them at 30 miles an hour. The same guns at live round practice, pitching shells on to an invisible target over the hills—the concentrated fiery flash, the whispering hiss of the departing shell, and the thump on the chest coincident with the sound of the discharge. Planes roaring down in mock bombing attacks and ground strafes as tanks advance below them, zooming away with wings tilted to clear the hillside. Infantry in slit trenches peppering a drogue target towed by a plane during anti-aircraft fire practice. AIRCRAFT DEFENCES. Anti-tank guns by the dozen in tow of their trucks, or on carriers. Again, their youthful crews springing to it to get their guns into action at live shell exercises. Nippy little armoured scout cars made in England and American Jeeps busily about their odd jobs during manoeuvres; crash-helmeted despatch riders taking their motorcycles into tough places in all weathers with the aplomb of professional riunters. Through all these scene weaves the everyday cavalcade of many types of other mechanical transport, each there for a particular job —mobile field workshop trucks, field ambulances, wireless signal units, tracked troop carriers, quartermasters’ trucks, supply wagons of all weights, sizes and designs, transporting food, fuel, ammunition and a multiplicity of equipment.

That was a part of the military activity in New. Zealand in 1942 as one observer saw it, and contrasted it with his first Army contacts in 1940. It may provide at least portion of the answer for those who wonder- in what state of preparedness • New Zealand faces her fourth year of war.