RUSSIA'S PART

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 268, 12 November 1942, Page 5

RUSSIA'S PART

WEIGHT OF BURDEN

Incomparable Service For Allied Cause British Official Wireless Rec. 2 p.m. RUGBY, Nov. 11. Referring in his speech to the war on the Russian front, Mr. Churchill said that, so far as Russia was concerned. her course and position were fixed. The Soviet had had to repel a terrific onslaught by Germany. They had been completely absorbed in their own defence. They had rendered incomparable service to the common cause by killing or permanently putting out of action far more millions that Germany lost throughout the last war. "I recognise the force of what M. Stalin said in his last speech about the enormous weight that had been thrown on Russia. I felt, what almost everyone in this House must have felt, that we should be suffering with her and should take some weight off her. Everything M. Stalin said about the disproportion of the burden thrown upon the Russians is perfectly true. "It is evident, however, that Russia is a living organism three times as strong as she was in the last war. The Russians have borne the burden and heat of the day and it is absolutely natural and fully within their right to make the very strong and stark assertion that they have made. Our need was to help them, but to help them in a manner effective and suitable. "It would have been a grave disservice to Russia, for instance, if we had had a dozen Dieppes in one day and a couple of Dunkirks a few weeks later."

Large Nazi Army in France Discussing the formidable nature of the cross-Channel offensive, Mr. Churchill said: "The German army in France was as large as ours in Britain, apart from the Home Guard. It was less well equipped than the British and American troops, but contained many veteran soldiers who ample weapons of late type and they had immense fortifications along the Channel and the North Sea coasts. "The weather hazard along this coast was also extremely intricate and having regard to ail the factors it would have been physically impossible to make an effective invasion of the Continent in the summer or autumn of 1942. "It is not for me to claim the whole responsibility of what has been done, but I am quite ready to bear it," he said. If asked why he had allowed false hopes to be raised in Russian breasts by the agreement with the American and Russian communique which spoke of a second front in Europe in 1942, he would say that it was perfectly justifiable to deceive the enemy, even if it involved misleading our own people for the time. Only one thing was indefensible, that was to mislead an ally. Mr. Churchill hoped to show that we made no promises that we could not fulfil. All the British promises to Russia had been made in writing or across the table in recorded conversations. "In June I gave the Russian Government a written document making it perfectly clear that while we were preparing to make a landing in 1942, I could not promise to do so. Meanwhile, whether or not 0 were going to attack the Continent in August or September, it was of the utmost importance for Russia that the enemy should believe that we had so resolved and so prepared. German Divisions in West "We have drawn and kept in the West at least 33 German divisions and a large portion pf the German bomber force, which is not bombing us, but is being kept for those very landings, should they occur. In Norway there are 10 German divisions, the main part of the German fleet, and 350 aircraft. "Every one of the 19 convoys we have sent to Russia has been an important fleet operation because the enemy's main fleet has been close at hand The latest convoy required 77 warships, apart from supply ships, he w! C now' held a very powerful enemy pinned on the Western European shores and every week our nreDarations to strike would be fncreased? said the Prime Minister At the same time we were making this wide encircling movement in the Mediterranean, having as the primary object the recovery of command of that vital sea, also having for an object the exposure of . the under-belly of the Axis especially in Italy, to heavy attack. That seemed from the beginning of this vear the correct strategic aim.