Loading...
The Goderich Signal-Star, 1966-11-17, Page 15e Blue Thumb ' By G. -MacLeod Ross Sl' Military Reform That The streets of military reform 0 have always been paved with good intentions ti o ns and sometimes me m s they 'have been very, very good. Witness Lord Haldane's organ- ization of the Territorial Army in .1909. A volunteer force, which attracted thousands of ° men in time to train themselves in the rudiments of . land war- fare. They were thus able and ready to reinforce the "Old Comtemptibles" In the field in -1915. Then there was Admiral Lord Fisher, who backed the "Dread- nought," the battle cruiser, de- veloped the torpedo and ap- preciated the virtue of oil fuel, in place of coal and also the high pressure 'turbine. Under his forceful drive, guns and gun -laying became progressively more potent and efficient. It does n6t detract from his bril- liant innovations in weaponry to note that the Royal Navy has always possessed what is in fact a true general staff. . They have always fostered the two essential elements in a staff co -equally: The tactician and the technician. lin conse- quence, the Royal Navy, un- like the army and air forge, has always known what it was "Pos- sible" to want .their policy nay not always have been correct, but it has always been stable enough to maintain and• pursue its objectives over long periods of years. Lord Fisher was an outstanding progressive, who rearmed the navy for the First World War. If his weapons did not always show to maximum advantage,• in battle, it was due rather t8" the way they were fought, 'than to any fallacy of conception. Hare -Belisha Re9ime- V Prior to the Second ' World War, Britain had as Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hgre- Belisha. Thinking back to the atmosphere 'he created over the years 1937 to 1940, during ,which he reigned, one cannot help comparing it to that ex- perienced today in the Canadian forces. ,True the parallel '`can - Clinton Radio Man Second Arnong. 1,000 In June, the Amateur Radio Initernational Field Day was held near Brucefield. Sponsored by the American Radio Relay League, the Field Day's purpose was to test Ama- teur communications w h i c h could prove invaluable to the local area if other communica. tions media were unserviceable during an emergency. Powerful equipment permits contact with other "ham" stations through- out Canada andthe United were operated at a remote site. States. The club has also suc- Canadian Forces Base Clinton's cessfully communicated with Amateur Radio Club partici- ' amateur lradio stations in pated in this event and was Australia, New Zealand, and .... ::...V--cellt T: r an,iywyd,`,11iirat;' harrQ a o,,A41 rr03i4 _; 4ti op "-: The club is run by a four - placed' second in Canada. More than 1,000 Canadian ,amateur radio clubs entered the event. The club further distinguished itself by finishine15th in North America. Formed in February 1964, the club is open to civilian and service members alike. Club activities include building and repairing radios in the work- shops, monitoring the short wave listening station,' and train, ing classes in radio theory and morse code for beginners study- ing for Department of Trans- port exams. Past president Sgt. Allan Hampshire fills .the dual -roles - of base bobbies coordinator and emergencyco-ordinator for Huron County. He said the club CWL Eats Pot Luck Goderich CWL opened its November meeting with • a pot luck supper with the nuns pre- sent. Thirty-two members at- tended and a penny ` sale was conducted with the profits given to the Vanier Institute for the CWL Centennial project. Rosters are now in progress for the Christmas Fair on Dec. 3, at the parish hall. Rosaries are to be given to the Grade 3 children at their first com- munion class. Sister Monira 'asked for work- ers for a missionary project for Father Hudson. Chairman was president. Mrs, Clem Steffler, Paul's Delivery. Owned and Operated by Paul Spain u Local Delivery -Service Local Hauling ANYTIME. For Information CALL 524-9469 If you are NEW -TO -TOWN or have just moved into a new home 9ODERICH'S OWN .. man executive which includes Cpl. `,`Robbie" Robinson, presi- dent; Jack Hamilton, vice-presi- dent; Cpl. Tony Cully, secretary; and training instructor Cpl. Al Knight. Clubrooms are located in Building 33, opposite the Bank' of Montreal sub -branch at CFB Clinton. Meetings are held on the. first Monday of each month and new members are cordially invited to attend. not be pushed ilio far. For one thin g Mr. Hellyer is a Minister of Defence; the civil overlord of all three services. For , another his utterances to date have lacked detail. He has been relentlessly reticent. One waits 'and waits for the rabbit to appear. Yet both were. and are disruptive' influences. Each injected that element of uncertainty and suspicion into 'the minds of the .professionals. Each failed to induce confi- dence. Both fiddled with the foundations of the services; with the morale of the leaders, while courting the rank and file with sweetmeats. In both cases the alarm and despon- dency created has been so great that it has been necessary to tour the commands with emis- saries, attempting to restore some modicum of complacence. In his first six months of of-' fice, Hore Belisha had sacked the incumbent Chief of the Im- perial General Staff and the Ad- jutant General. He liquidated the appointment of Master Gen- eral of the—Ordnance entirely. These were all members of the Army Council. As far as the personnel who became casual- ties in this, his first "bash," it is not suggested he was alto- gether in error. In the case of the M.G.O., people kept remark- ing that he had fought tanks at Cambrai and it was probably his First World War prowess, which gained for him his eleva- tion to M.G.O. However to fight tanks was no apprenticeship for their design to take advan- tage of the strides made by the gasoline engine, by artillery and by armor, over the previous 20 years. As was observed of some of these casualties of Berasha.'-s-=consulate:- `FreAericl - "°thee gre'at'S'It tritS Vre-.,p esenf" at every one .of his victories, yet still, they remained mules." Democratize Army? Hore-Belisha reduced the re- tirement age for officers. One considered unworthy of pro- motion to the next higher rank before a stipulated . age, was for the "high jump." He chose Gort as his C.I.G.S. but later replaced him by "Tiny" Iron - side, making Gort the Com- mander in Chief of• the Ex - Preceeded De peditiona"ry Force. He was ac- . of trying t. cased by thepress ry ng o democratize the army. He of- fered higher pay; temporary commissions through the ranks; improved barrack amenities. Hut he brought down ons his head a storm of parliamentary criti- cism because of some optimis- tically erroneous statements as• to tb,e strength of the air de- fences of Great Britain, at a time (1937) when air defence was uppermost in the minds' of the people. His figures were successfully challenged in Par- liament by , Duncan Sandys, Churchill's son-in-law, an M.P. and a 'territorial anti:aircraft gunner, FI -B thus incurred the verbal lash, not onlva,of Chur- chill, but of a number of other :14.P.'s ''Phis was his nadir and any reputation, gained by his earlier reforms, was discounted. Here is a sidelight on the unpreparedness of (the anti- aircraft defences during the `1937 "flap" when Hitler was expected to make an unan- nounced air attack on Britain. An A.A. Group Commander was driving through east London, when he saw an officer disap- pear dawn a •side street, with a round of 3 -inch A.A. ammuni- tion under his arm. He follow- ed and was led toa black- smith's shop, where he found the officer, having a fuze key fitted to the live round, (Keys were in short `supply. With-' out them the round could not have its fuse set to burst at the required altitude when fired at an aerial target.) Many of the reforms men- tioned had been worked out by his military advisers; many had been advocated, unsuccessfully, before his consulate,fort`inan- -,vi l -reasons.- B to-reggarding-- - t w a s extremely susceptible, ' hinted that "intriguing gen- et°aLs" had- engineered his re. moval. There is good reason to believe that ironside, the CI:9.s., knew nothing about it until late in the evening of its announcement.' One of the "popular" papers hinted at Gort as one . of the intriguers, which makes o n e wonder whether they had ever had. even the sketchiest acquaint- ance with him. Two minutes conversation would have con- vinced anyone, but an intelli- gent journalist, on the point. There. was -in amusing inci- dent to' relieye the "gloom" of his departure.' A man was ar- rested for heaving a brick through the ground floor win- dow of the war office. The brick landed on the still warm chair of the deputy assistant • director of the A.T.S.,' Jacqueline Vere- ker, the sprightly daughter of the C. in C. of the B.E.F., Lord Gort. However no one ever con- nected the "miscreant" with one of H -B's supporters, anxious to revenge him, vicariously for his "betrayal" by her father. Hore-Belisha was never liked, either by his fellow members in Parliament or by the army. H4 was slick and for part of_ his tour, had Liddell Hart as his,„ private unofficial adviser. It seems possible that this associa- tion lay at the root of his. un- popularity. In his Memoirs, Lid- dell Hart gives a detailed ac- count of his efforts to guid H -B in the way he should o, until H -B finally broke ith him., Hart, a reputed "tank ex- pert," makes no mention of H -Bs' major "blob." For in 'eli- minating the M.G.O. deparq- e"`-meht;fromTlie..ra oice,_as:he toderieb $i,5nal� tar, Thursday, November 17, ` las IA :.py.•-.• mels es F'�` q ence Minister Lotus Years Because during the lotus years up to 1939, no military authority had seen fit to .or- ganize a cadre of . tank engi- neers, it ngi-neers,it cannot be argued that his action denied advice on tanks s to the logistical staff. As has been recalled in a pre- vious article, the tank °staff only produced one battle worthy tank ---the Matilda—from 1933 to 1945, while they could not be persuaded to use either the 6 to 17 pounder guns in their current efforts at tank produc- tion. The artillery aspect' was total- ly dissimilar. Over• the years from 1346 at the Battle of Crecy, an adequate' cadre of artillery technicians had been built up. Even so, it was only the strong personality and tech- nical brilliance of the incum- bent Director of Artillery from 1939 to 16451, which retrieved the gun from similar stagnation. Due to this leadership, we out -gunned the Germans in quantity, performance and in time. The better gun was al- ways to hand, be it the 25 pounder gun/howitzer, the 6 --awl 17 pounder anti-tank guns ort the Sten tommy gun. •For the majority of these the Gen- eral Staff issued neither request nor sanction. Here then is an example of what the fundamental ignor- ance of a minister can corn- ound. In spite of self-confi- ,press ,all:egaffcu-- "drat ---fii*.. -h,ad" rescinded the "rule" forbidding officers and other ranks to dine in the same restaurant, there never was such a "rule". As a matter of historical accuracy, such a "rule" had been in- troduced by. the ladies on .one A.T.S. unit. It had been quick- ly squashed, Boom Fell When Chamberlain finally lowered the boom on Hore- Belisha, the press, to which he r did with cabinet approval, he relegated the entire weapon staff to another Ministry. His motive was to rid himself of 'production," which weighed heavily after his failure with anti-aircraft gun production. Bue`- his ignorance of the duties of the M.G.O. ` department was s,ueh that he did not realize he • was isolating the logistical staff (i.e, the General Staff) from weapon research, developmen: and design. Meteor.hasiieJoigest._ wheelbase in its class... gives you a smoother; quieter ride at no additional cost. It's the extra things we put into Meteor that make the difference. Meteor . has the longest wheelbase in its class. It's the smoothest, most comfortable -riding car in the popular price field. Independent, all -coil suspension lets Meteor's wheels step individually over bumps. Cushion -link rear suspension takes the "jar" out of dips and hollows. A compliance -tuned frame flexes slightly to help absorb road shock and vibration. That's Meteor. And that's the difference ! Ford of Canada More Comprehensive 3 -Point New Car Warranty 05 year/50,000 miles on power train, steering,suspension and wheels. ©2 year/24,000 miles on the entire car. 4 Only one dealer certification per year See your drawler for details Meteoruniquelydifferent in 'the popular price field. Meteor Montego 2 -door hardtop dente, 'elan and ruthlessness, all of which may provide political. capital, especially in peacetime,. they are not enough with which to win battles. The defence eiiyer forces, present an intricate me• ehanism: Anyone meddling with the "works" had better be fully aware of . the consequences of Ms bright ideas. TTEN IO� FARMERS The, Hensa1I Elevators will be closed all day Saturday comlrnencing November 19, 1966 until further notice. - E. L. MICKLE & SONS LTD. COOK BROS. MILLING , Coe, 11.1D. Wed G. ThOMPSON & SONS LTD. 45-6 FREE - frr.'�/d: rr ff ,,. .:: •:: r,. •r •r pw•ypp.np00^/ _ r r r r .•�f• riC:"'•CUr,•: rrr /i• r r r r r: rr r Ir rrr' �:'rrf"r r:f rf r rrr r r >i �•rf FN, rf/.' it r,{ r . rr • r I r { r� /rr}f/'fes r r ir:: i r "'•:'r• :::.';rrr •: �.� f i 11:� r: `/! , Yrr.•. r WELCOME SERVICE DR:AW Come in to the Goderich Building Centre and enter our FREE CHRISTMAS DRAW. There is no obligation to buy and if you win you willreceive this valuable and lovely picnic table that comes as illustrated,. complete with canopy. 0e sure you enter! Hiro Are Ideal Gifts - FOR THE "DO-IT-YOURSELF" MEMBER OF THE FAMILY , 4 save $1390 PORTABLE 8" TILTING ARBOR CIRCULAR SAW Complete with stand and extension POW E R TOOLS Guard Extra MODEL toe -Z Centrally located control permits fast, accurate ad- justments of saw blade for all cutting operations. Large working surface, To main- tain constant belt tension and alignment, the motor shifts autorhatically. The ideal saw for all-round workshop use. P / REGULAR $93.40 Pfiv 7 SALE PRICE7O5O MIy,"" ,would like to call on you with "housewarming gifts" and in- formation about your new Iota - tion. The Hostess will be glad to arrange your subscription to the SIGNAL -STAR. OCall het- at 524-9525 15 distinctive models in Montego • S-33 • MVlontcalm • Rideau 500 Rideau Every '67 Ford built car is equipped with Ford of Canada's standard safety package, 11933C HURON AUTOMOTIVE & SUPPLY 263 HURON ROAD 524-6271 ...has a better idea MERCURY ° ai H.P. STANLEY ROUTER 6'z" STANDARD DUTY SKIL SAW DELUXE SKIL DRILL BLACK & DECKER DELUXE JIG SAW 7t4" BLACK & DECKER Deluxe Saw '91 ocemoichoe 49:95 66.50 73.50 35.65 72.25 With Carrying Case DIVISION oe GODERICH MANUFACTURING (SALES) UM ITED CAMBRIA atANGLESEA GODERICH, ONT.