HINTS OF COMING INVASION MOVES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 231, 29 September 1943, Page 3

HINTS OF COMING INVASION MOVES

LEND-LEASE SUPPLIES

For France, Belgium, Norway And Greece N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 10.30. WASHINGTON, Sept. 28. Hints of next year's invasion campaigns were given by LieutenantColonel Gaud at a War Department conference of industrialists, labour leaders and newspaper executives, when he disclosed that 10 per cent of military lend-lease supplies in 1944 have been earmarked for France, Belgium, Norway and Greece. This year's lend-lease programme calls for 5,400,000,000 dollars' worth of supplies, chiefly for Britain, Russia and China. Colonel Gaud said the air forces have done a superb job in maintaining the air route to China, but this method has serious limitations and the Allies have not been sitting idle waiting for the opening of the land route into China. Colonel Gaud explained that General Stillwell, Commander of U.S. Forces in China, India and Burma, has established in India a great training camp for Chinese troops. Cargo planes which carry American supplies into China return to India loaded with Chinese soldiers. Some of these Chinese troops are already guarding American Army engineers who are building roads, but mostly they will return to China to train other Chinese in the use of modern machinery. The Russians, Colonel Gaud said, are now receiving so much equipment over the Persian Gulf route that the transport system is strained, at least on the Russian front. Locomotives have become more important than tanks as the Russians are now asking for hundreds of locomotives and 50 per cent more trucks.