NAMES AND PLACES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 61, 23 August 1940, Page 2

NAMES AND PLACES

A Plan Frustrated Italy’s actual preparations for entry into the war were made long before the actual day, and there is some reason to believe that the date was altered. One Italian ship, the Umbria, filled with high explosive and cement, was to have been used to block the Suez Canal, but that plan was frustrated when the ship scuttled herself outside Port Sudan in the Red Sea as she was overhauled by British destroyers. This ship had passed through the Canal and had been loitering about in such a way that the suspicion of the authorities was roused. ‘They kept a close watch on her and bustled her through to the Red Sea. But for an apparent change of date on either Hitler's or Mussolini’s part, the Suez Canal might have been blocked for some months. General John Pershing General John Pershing, G.C.B., who has suggested that the United States sell many of her old destroyers to Britain as soon as possible, is America’s bestknown soldier. He commanded the American Expeditionary Force in France from June 1917 to September 1919, and ater became Chief of Staff of the United States Army until 1924, General Pershing spent a great deal of his early

military life in the Phillipines, and was with Kuroki’s army in Manchuria. In 1916 he commanded the American troops which were sent to Mexico in pursuit of Villa. While he was in command of the Border Districts of the United States in 1915, his wife and three of his daughters lost their lives when the Presidio was burned..He is now 80 years of age,

WAR DIARY

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The Human Element As in the last war, so in this onemany of our most successful pilots have worked out their own individual methods of attack. The fighting pilot who first thought of attacking out of the sun brought a new element into tactics.

One of the most important elements in air fighting is the psychological element. Some of the greatest pilots of the last war were uncanny in estimating where the attention of the enemy aircraft crew would be concentrated at any given moment. By this means they were able to make surprise attacks and get

within a range that would enable them to take careful aim before they were disturbed by enemy gunners, That is why the airman’s brain must act with the speed of light; that is why our men must and do keep themselves fit. After all, the human element — the combination of courage, initiative, endurance-is the final element in an air battle.