Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prӕvalebit WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1941. AMERICA PREPARES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 228, 9 July 1941, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prӕvalebit WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1941. AMERICA PREPARES.

In view of General Sir Archibald Wavell’s statement that if the war is prolonged armed assistance from the United States will be necessary to achieve final victory—an opinion confirmed by General Sir Claude Auchinleck redirects attention to the manner in which America is preparing for eventualities. It was reported a few days ago that the United States Chief of Staff had presented to the Secretary for War a report Stressing the urgent need for preparedness. The specific points mentioned by General Marshall were extended training under the scheme of selective service, or conscription; the removal of restrictions which confine the operations of'American armed forces to the United States; and the reorganisation of the higher command to provide more aggressive leadership. This does not mean that a considerable amount of valuable, essential work has not been undertaken already, in marked contrast to the position in the last war. Then, when the United States entered the conflict she was lamentably unprepared. Her military strength in April, 1917, comprised 80,000 men in the regular army and about 150,000 in the National Guard. The organisation of, manpower, however, was so speedily developed that in the last nineteen mouths of hostilities four million men were called into army service and 2,086,000 sent overseas. It is no secret that had the United States become involved in the present hostilities last year, history would almost have repeated itself. But the realisation of what the successive inroads of the German war machine means to their ultimate security and wellbeing has roused the people to such an extent that the Administration has been able to take, not only without popular protest but with general approval, steps that would have been resented a comparatively short time ago. Thus drafting under the selective service scheme has since proceeded apace, and to-day the Army has grown to 1,400,000 men with training facilities under way for an ultimate land strength of four million, the same figure as in 1918. In the last war General Ludendorrf made the mistake of under-estimating the effectiveness of American intervention because of the time it would take to train armies and transport therm across the Atlantic. The extent to which advance preparations already been made in the United States suggests that in this war American intervention might be even more speedily decisive.