THE YEAR 1944 DECISIVE ACTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 5, 7 January 1944, Page 5

THE YEAR 1944 DECISIVE ACTION

MR. ROOSEVELT'S PROMISE

RUGBY, January 6. President Roosevelt promised the United States Congress (today that 1944 would be a year of decisive action m the war. He made this point ui a covering letter to his thirteenth report on the lease-lend programme. Mr. Roosevelt said that all nations were giving what they could for victory. He emphasised that neither lend-lease statistics nor dollar funds of any kind could measure the relative contributions of the nations towards winding up the war. "By combining their strength, the United Nations have increased the power of the common drive to defeat the Axis," he said. "We have already beaten back the enemy on every front on which we are engaged. At Teheran and Cairo plans were agreed on for major offensives which will speed the day of victory. With the closer unity there achieved we shall be able to strike ever-increasing blows until the unconditional surrender of the Nazis and the Japanese. Mutual aid has contributed substantially to the strength of the United Nations. The flow of lend-lease assistance from the United States to the Allies and the reverse lend-lease from the Allies to us has increased the power of our united offensives. Some countries, like the United States and Canada, located away from the fighting theatres, are able to make available to other nations large quantities of food and manufactured arms. Others, like the Soviet Union and China, require virtually everything they can produce to fight the enemy on their own soil.

"The cost of the war to us and our allies is high. The more fully we can now mobilise man-power, supplies, and other resources for the decisive tasks ahead, the lower will be the final cost of victory. The United Nations in the New Year are stronger and more firmly united than ever before. The Germans and the Japanese will both soon learn that to their sorrow."—8.0.W.