The Press TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1944. Invasion Targets

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24258, 16 May 1944, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1944. Invasion Targets

Although the Official German News Agency, as reported this morning, has concluded that the Allied choice of air targets last week “ gives “ some indication of the date when “ the battle for western Europe will “ begin,” it has not offered to interpret the portents by the calendar. ‘•Soon,” in this context, is a word that eludes the count of hours or days or weeks. It is clear only that Allied bombing attacks have developed in suggestive phases, railway targets in the invasion area succeeding production centres in Germany and German-occupied territory, and forward and rear supply depots succeeding transport targets. Yet at no time has concentration on new targets freed others from attention. Nor is it by any means a safe deduction that the furious bombardment of the rail system serving the Channel coast and its eastward extension and of points in the defensive assembly area indicates the swing of invasion tactics to the final stage of “softening-up.” It is as likely to be experimental—a prolonged, practical test of the extent to which the German communications can be disorganised and of the time required to restore them. A fortnight ago, Spanish observers who reached Madrid after having seen the havoc around Paris reported that the Germans would have to rely “ almost solely on road “ transport to meet the coming “invasion.” The “Yorkshire Post,” accepting this story .or other suggestions to a similar effect, found “ no reason to doubt that the whole “ system of communications has “ been so badly damaged that the “ enemy will be largely thrown back “ on the use of road lorries,” which must “slow down army movements “and restrict the* forwarding of “ supplies.” It can only be said that such views are dangerously deceptive. They discount far too much the facts about the rail system con-1 curried, which is the most elaborate and strategically the most convenient in the world. Temporary rerouting over the numerous main lines and their cross links, along the French, Belgian, and Dutch coast, is easily managed; the nature of the country simplifies repair work. Fast experience is too heavily discounted also, not only in enemy territory but in Britain, where many links in the close southern network were knocked, out during the blitz without serious results and even the wreck of important junctions was swiftly made good. So much may be assumed; bombardment of the anti-invasion rail system is intended to be carried to a calculated stage of effectiveness and can be. It is too much to assume that this calculation looks to a complete knock-out. and is reaching it, or can reach it within any measurably near period. Every warning against the belief that invasion can be anything but a difficult and costly operation is a warning against such an assumption. It is also a warning against the belief that the Luftwaffe is at the point of exhaustion and will*not be able to contest tne skies against Tedder’s air fleet. What is true is that the Luftwaffe, v/hich now avoids combat against the raiders and now is hurled against them, is being husbanded, to maintain a reserve for the invasion battle. The existence of that reserve is certain; it may be as many as 2500 machines; its quality is still high. But it exists only because, again and again, vital targets, are left exposed to attack; and the attacks it does not meet are destroying the means of replacing it.