TURKS CA' CANNY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 194, 18 August 1942, Page 3

TURKS CA' CANNY

GRASP EACH HAND

AND SIDESTEP HITLER

(By COL. FREDERICK PALMER) WASHINGTON, June 21.

We are told that our bombers which were interned in Turkey had performed their mission. This indicates that before our planes, manned by our crews, join' the R.A.F. in raids in the West, we have been doing some pioneering for a bombing front in the East. There, any bombs we drop have the direct result of crippling the German offensive in Russia.

It is quite within the probabilities in the progress of the war that our bombers now interned in Turkey will not be out of action for the duration. Should Turkey find it to her interest to enter the war on our side, she will welcome all the bombers we can send as she applies her toe in helping to give the final kick to the Axis.

Modernised Turkey is not making any such impulsive mistake in this war as old Turkey made in the first World War. Then, under the spell of the early German victories, she became an ally of Germany at the cost of under-dog humiliation, loss of territory and much misery. This time she has been realising on her strategic situation by getting all the arms and material she could both from the Axis and the Allies, but they have had few planes and tanks to spare. Fur the Allies, her northern coastal stretch commands the H'ack Sea and the opposite Russian shore in Hank of the German drive to the Caucasus.

Come Into My Parlour

(jernuiny wants a pathway through Turkey to attack the oil fields of tile Allies in Iran and Iraq and in flank of the Russian oil fields. It was not the threatening, storming Hitler who was the host of High Turkish Army commanders at his field headquarters, but the ingratiating llitler offering the hand of fellowship of his unconquerable army, which was bound to deal the Russian Army its death blow this summer. He was not so successful in this role as he had been in bullying some little nations.

If the Turks had to do an appeasement. they wanted martial proof, not that of diplomatic verbiage. They were not picking a loser again. The Japanese, too, are in a wait-and-see attitude. As an Axis partner Japan is no less out for herself than neutral Turkey. Thus the German offensive in Russia, for which Germany has mustered all her available strength, is on trial before the rulers both at Ankara and Tokyo. Both look not only to the Russian frant, but toward Libya, where Ankara is particularly interested. •

The Axis aim in Libya is a victory which will gain control of the Eastern Mediterranean. Having this, and control of the Black Sea, the Axis will have the waters along Turkey's western and northern coasts.

A German wedge-like drive toward the Caucasus and the vital Russian oil fields must protect one flank from Russian counter-attacks. On the other, as it approaches the Caucasus, it will be under the Luftwaffe of any Allied planes mobilised in Iraq and Iran and the Russian Caucasus. It will Vie getting farther from its bases and nearer Iraq and Iran air bases. Meanwhile. Ankara and Tokyo are looking toward the Rhine arid the English Channel as well as the Don and the Caucasus. They will take note that the biggest convoy of American troops which ever crossed the Atlantic arrived safely in North Ireland without any incident of interference on the way, in spite of the toil of merchant ships Axis submarines are taking in our coastal waters.

It is no threat, but a fact that a second army front in the West is forthcoming. For that our armv has been preparing. Conjecture as to when and where it will be established is another matter. The only question is time and unity of action and advance softening by air power. There is still an element of military opinion which thinks that Germany may yet undertake an invasion of Britain, though Hitler fails of victory in Russia if he can so entrench on the Russian front that he ca« spare enough divisions for the venture. The object will be the same as the generalship which concludes it is better to lose lives in a counter-attack which disorganises the enemy than in stonewalling. In repelling the invasion. Britain would be too occupied to establish a second front immediately across the Channel.

Japan will largely govern her war policy by the progress of the German offensive in Russia. It is bound to influence her decision whether to make war on Russia. If she does then our bomber crew interned in Siberia will have an opportunity to bomb .Japan again. If the German offensive is broken German will be on the defensive, even though she takes the desperate chance of an invasion of Britain. A German victory in Russia is bound to prolong the War.—Auckland Star and IS. A.N. A.