BLACK SEA BID

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 192, 15 August 1941, Page 7

BLACK SEA BID

BRITISH COMMENT

Problems In Grandiose Nazi

Project

Brtli-h OltlciaJ \VlrHo#s. Rec. 2 p.m. RUGBY. Aug. 14. Under the heading. "Hitler's Black Sea Bid." the Daily Telegraph reviews the Nazi drive towards Odessa and N'ikoiaiev. and suggests that the Nazi General Staff may believe that should these ports fall—a possibility which must be faced— "they can command several ways to victory." Both harbours, the paper points out. might be used to outflank the Russian front, capture the Crimea and reach the oilfield of the Caucasus or. alternatively, strike across Turkey at Irak and* Iran.

"The British-Soviet declaration." the Daily Telegraph continues, "has created difficulties for these grandiose Nazi projects. Attempts to make Turkey subserve the Fuehrer's megalomania is now countered. She is not to he bullied into making her country a corridor for the next Nazi conquest.

"However many legions Hitler's marshals can deploy on the Black Sea shore, there are no ship:; to move them until some run the gauntlet to and through the Dardanelles and there is no naval protection for them except what Mussolini has to lend.

"Stories are told of the great numbers of barges prepared at C'onstanza. and of the motor torpedo boats brought down the Danube. Russia has a fleet in being in the Black Sea far more than capable of obliterating any naval force which Hitler could scrape together there

U.S. PETROL FOR RI SSIA

2 p.m. WASHINGTON". Aug. 14

Mr. H. Ickes. Secretary for the Interior, announced 10 the Press today that the first American tanker shipment of aviation gasoline would leave Los Angeles to-day for Vladivostok. Other tankers wot.id follow shortlv.

Mr. Ickes said that despite the sales restriction, deliveries of gasoline were up by 8 per cent. Therefore more rigid steps could be expected immediately. He stated that he was sending Mr. Edwin Pauley to London to study the oil situation in al! iu aspects, including rationing.