Wide Open to Criticism

Major General George Randolph Pearkes, the Progressive Conservative Party's parliamentary military critic, found plenty to criticize on a recent visit to Canada's 27th Infantry Brigade in Western Germany. Back home in Victoria, B.C. last week, he made a nationwide broadcast assailing Canada's decision to send infantrymen instead of armored units to the defense of Western Europe.

As Pearkes saw it: "In Europe there are hundreds of thousands of young men available for the infantry regiments of their own armies. Canada [has] sent the very type of soldier most plentiful in Europe, placing reliance on numbers rather than hitting power. It is not a few extra riflemen that are required . . . but highly mobile, hard-hitting units able to develop the greatest possible volume of fire with the minimum number of men. We can never compete with Russia, matching man for man."

Old Soldier Pearkes, who won the Victoria Cross in World War I and commanded a Canadian brigade overseas in World War II, made it clear that he was not opposing military aid to Europe. "It is the form of help I consider so wrong," he said. "Canada . . . has wonderful facilities for the training of airmen and . . . armored formations and, coupled with these, a huge industrial potential. These factors are not available to our European allies."

Defense officials in Ottawa were silent in the face of Pearkes's criticism. Privately they agreed with him and would gladly bring Canada's overseas forces up to Pearkes's specifications, if the necessary equipment were available for the changeover. But neither Britain nor the U.S. can yet supply tanks in the numbers needed. The same is true of planes; Canada plans to send eleven squadrons overseas, but has been able to deliver only three for lack of front-line aircraft. Until such shortages are licked, the government is committed to its infantry brigade, urgently requested by General Eisenhower as a morale builder for Western Europe.

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