A REAL MIRACLE OF MOBILITY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 55, 2 September 1944, Page 6

A REAL MIRACLE OF MOBILITY

At last Goebbels admits to his German dupes that they must not rely on having "a new wonder weapon that would change the course of the war. . . .It would be very foolish to. expect a sudden change in the war situation overnight as an immediate result of a new German weapon." So far as the only important new German weapon yet operating—the flying bomb—is concerned, its victory will have to come quickly or not at all, because, in a very literal sense, the ground is slipping from under its feet. Advancing land armies can capture the land-bases of flying bombs just as they capture the aerodromes and airfields of hostile aeroplanes; and never has any weapon, dependent on a fixed land-base, been faced with a more rapid advance than that of the Allied armies in France.. The flying bomb, therefore, must win Germany's war quickly or not at all; and Goebbels now feels constrained to warn Germany not to expect any such rapid miracle. Discouraging and belated ' candour - N on the part of a reluctant truth-teller] Goebbels's second string—the mysterious V2 — and other mysteries are still supposed to be coming. But ,the long-range prospect is no better for Germany than the short-range outlook, for Goebbels admits that "the Allies undoubtedly could overtake Germany in matters of invention." He thus fails to counteract the "all is over" tone of German frontline soldiers' letters sent to ' their people at home. x So far as the present war is concerned, a far: greater invention than the flying bomb is the American technique for speeding up the advance of armies in weakly defended country. This technique is complex, not simple; it seems to have drawn on everything that modern science knows, or can devise, in the way of accelerating the movement overland of masses of men and material. It seems to be an engineering and organising triumph over logistic difficulties. "Never before," writes a--"New York Times" correspondent with the United States First Army, "have troops advanced so swiftly"; and the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, Mr. Paterson, states that ".the advances have never been retarded" because "the ' supply programme has been so carefully planned." This miracle of mobility is just what was wanted at this moment of the Allies' war, and it remains a fact that "who hits the moment is the man." The German inventors seem to be hitting a moment that may ba useful to Hitler No. 2 in 1961—if international disunity permits a Hitler No. 2to arise. Meanwhile, the British Bailey bridge is more important mili-, tarily than is the still embryonic V 2 of Germany; and nothing that Germany has invented in the last three months can be as immediately effective as is the technique by which, according to Paterson, "the engineers lay oil pipelines at a rate of 70 miles daily, with the result that oil is pumped acfoss western France to a point not far behind- General Pattori's tanks." With constructive arts that -have a peacetime /value the Allies are defeating the purely diabolic genius of destruction that is behind the German flying bomb. Admittedly, the Allied advances might have been slower had the Germans established in France defence-in-depth on the lines of jfcheir former boasts. But their deep defences proved to be even less real than the prematurely born V 2. Our offensive, .says the "New York Times" correspondent quoted above "is sweeping on at a breathless and incredible rate." An amazing fact is that "our troops seldom need to dismount or deploy: ... The Germans have had to flee without a fight from geographically •excellent lines, on which they undoubtedly expected to make a stand. The defence-in-depth, of which Hitler and Rommel boasted, has proved little more than lines on the map, much of which is already behind us." "German ghosts' still haunting the old defensive lines held in France in 1914-18—the days of permanent entrenchment— | marvel to see both friend and foe | sweep by them like the wind. The impact of modern technical methods and adaptive science on the age-old logistic difficulties of war was to be expected. It was, indeed, inevitable. In the modern world nothing is more conspicuous than the shrinking of distances caused, by the almost awe-inspiring advancement of methods of transport and communication, breaking down all forms of isolation, geographic or political. In the last decade, distance and time have both acquired a new meaning; and this has been revealed in the peacetime progress between the two world wars, but the actual revelation of the effect of modern .mobility on the logistics of war awaited a Hitler—and in 1939 Sound one. Hitler's amazing sweep through France in .1940 is now being duplicated • and excelled by the Allies in 1944. And the typical German, today 'hoist with his own petard, accepts the situation with remarkable philosophy. As an embroidery to war! —the war which a German takes for granted—he finds place in his fugitive trains for plenty of liquor and women. Picture a German train making its way Belgiumward across France with one car devoted to French perfumes, another to women and wine, and a third to tanks which, forsaking their own road locomotion, are taken on to flat railway vehicles, by which means they move across the country, firing as they go, where firing is deemed necessary. The "New .York Times" correspondent records that "the . German tanks aboard the train fought our tanks operating on the road," but the fight "lasted only a few minutes." He adds: "Five German railway trains, carrying personnel and every kind of equipment, from collaborationist ladies who dare not remain in France, to Tiger tanks on flat cars, were destroyed as they tried to escape." The correspondent also came across the smoking' wreckage of a train consisting of 23 cars and coaches, four of which were carrying Panther tanks and antiaircraft guns. In between were a •score of officers and women-companions with barrels of liquor. "It is extraordinary what Germans are trying to take away," he says. "There has perhaps never before been a battle like this.". Will there ever be another? The answer to that question depends on the good sense of the world at large —not on light-hearted warriors who take both victory and defeat in their \

stride, and who, enjoying even the anti-climax of their national cause wend their expensive way over a bleeding victim country,' taking with them collaborationist women and its perfumes as they depart.