Evening Post THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1942. ONE BATTLE STILL TO WIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1942, Page 4

Evening Post THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1942. ONE BATTLE STILL TO WIN

I Modern Avar, more than any of the wars of the past, is a war of weapons. The belligerent that can produce the most weapons and bring them to bear on the enemy will, oilier things being equal, win. There are then two problems, two battles, the battle of production, to beat the enemy in the output of the most and the best weapons and all that goes with their use, and the battle of transportation, the carrying of the weapons to the various battle-fronts. By the testimony of the leaders chosen to organise the manufacture of arms, armaments, and munitions of war the United Nations have, after a hard struggle with superhuman effort, won the first battle—the battle of production. The United States alone, it has been stated authoritatively, is producing military aircraft at a rate that will soon exceed that of all the Axis countries—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the territories they occupy. Mr. Oliver LyHelton, (he British Minister of Production, declared in America that while British production was within sight of its peak, there was no peak to that of the United States. What applies to aircraft applies also to tanks, guns, I and all the other engines of war and the men and material required to loperate them in action. There is no shortage in these prime essentials of war. But the other battle is still to win. Production for war purposes is of little use unless it can be distributed where it is wanted and can serve its purpose. It is here that the problem arises. The United Nations by the circumstances of their initial unpreparedness have been pushed out by their fully-prepared enemies from the Continents of Europe and Asia where decisive campaigns are being fought, and can only with extreme difficulty and danger supply with the instruments of war their AHies» Russia and China, who are fighting for their lives. In Libya, too, there is the same difficulty of supply. The great producing nations, Britain and America, are on the outer circle and must transport the men and material for war over thousands of miles of ocean, while their enemies, Germany and Japan, either over occupied territory or in seas over which they have a measure of mastery, can transfer their munitions of war, at comparatively short range, quickly, safely, and cheaply. At the same lime they can infest the oceans far and wide with the roving under-water pirate, the submarine, and imperil sea communications in narrower waters with swarms of shore- and carrier-based aircraft. This they are doing in a supreme effort to check and hamper the flow of Allied war material to the various battle-fronts, while desperately striving to knock out our Allies before much -needed succour jean arrive.

This is the most urgent and immediate problem for the leaders of the .United Nations in the outer circle, Britain and America, in their task of helping their Allies, Russia and China, in the inner circle, whether it is by actual supplies or by diversionary offensives to relieve the pressure on them. Enemy submarines have sunk ships in the Arctic, the North and South Atlantic, in the Indian Ocean, off South Africa, and in the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea. The Germans are making a special effort also, it is now reported, to strike at Russian land communications with the ports of discharge for Allied convoys in the Barentz and White Seas. The Japanese are making a similar effort at sea to cut the Allied communications with this part of the globe and with the Middle East. So far the Axis has achieved anything like success nowhere except, perhaps, off the Atlantic coast of America. There the toll of shipping is serious and partially nullifies the building of new ships. The Battle of the Atlantic, as it used to be called, has now become the Battle of the Seven Seas, a battle that fluctuates, but never ceases. It may never be won outright by the elimination of all enemy perils from under and over the sea, but it may be considered as won for practical purposes when, as in the last war, the menace is kept under control and the losses reduced to a minimum. It is not sufficient to produce the goods; they must be delivered. There is every ground for confidence that this purpose will eventually be achieved, but the dangers in the meantime cannot be ignored. It is only when the massive war production of the great arsenals of democracy can be placed where it is of most effect that victory for freedom can be said to be in sight.