NOTES ON THE WAR

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

NOTES ON THE WAR

THEN AND NOW

WHIRLIGIG OF TIME

Yesterday (September 1) was the fifth anniversary cf the outbreak of this world war, and tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the declaration of war by the Allies—Britain, ami France. The.war has thus entered its sixth year. Also, the Allies are passing through—-in some places have already passed through—the battle-zone of the last war, 1914-18, and have swept back over much of the ground, covered by the- Germans in their invasion of France in May, 1940. Similarly, ! the Russians ar« driving into Tran- ! sylvania and Rumania, the sceno of the German invasion' of Rumania in 1916. It should not be forgotten also that just over two years after their part in the amphibious operation of August, 1942, which failed, the Canadians have entered and occupied Dieppe by the, hack door. Thus the whirligig of time brings its revenges. On September 1, 1939, Hitler launched on isolated Poland the Wehrmacht in full strength, with General Brauchitsch in command, 48 infantry divisions, 15 armoured divisions, and four air fleets, with about 5000 aircraft, a force greater than that which the Western Allies had to .face in France on D Day. After a devastating onslaught from the air on Polish airfields, bases, and communications, the Germans attacked from three sidesnorth, west, ,and south, from East Prussia, from the Berlin area opposite Poznan; and from Silesia and Slovakia, secured by the .bloodless occupation of Czechoslovakia in the previous -March. Against these converging attacks Poland had less than 800,000 men in the field, practically without armour and air protection. It was an ideal opportunity for the demonstration of the blitzkrieg of which the Germans had talked so much. The country was mainly level, with few obstacles except occasional rivers. The weather that September" was unusually fine and dry, and the autumn rains, to which the world looked to immobilise armies in mud, came far too late. Poland, surrounded by enemies and cut off from friends, put up a great fight, and the Germans suffered such losses in their haste to. complete the job that they had to throw, in fresh reserves. The inevitable end was hastened by the advent of Russian troops in Eastern Poland on September 17. Three days later the country was entirely overrun by the invaders. Warsaw and Hel and Modlin and some other isolated points held out longer.' Warsaw was forced to surrender on September 28, but Admiral Unrug held out in Hel till October 2. The last battle was fought by General.Kleeberg, from October 2 to October ■* 5, near Kock. Encircled, at last he surrendered. The campaign had- lasted five weeks, and it was too late then for the Germans to undertake an attack in the, west against France and Britain. 'xTie Allies thus gained a valuable, respite. Old Battlefields. Five years later the Poles, who have never ceased fighting on land, at sea, and in the air, in the various campaigns which have brought, victory near, and underground in Poland itself, find themselves in victorious Allied armies .in France and Italy, and in heroic resistance in Warsaw itself. They are approaching their native land by way of the land of their foes. In France the advancing columns of the Allies are traversing the historic battlefields of the Western Front of 1914-18, but without the need to fight —so far—fresh battles. The enemy which swept over all this country at a great'pace in the last fortnight of May, 1940, is now scurrying out at a quicker pace, with the Allies hard on their heels. Historic rfames—Amiens, Arras, Laon, Soissons. Reims, Verdun, Sedan—flash out on the screen and fade again from the news into peace and obscurity once more. The Somme line has been passed at points, and the Hindenburg Line and the' Champagne Line—and even the Armistice Line—are all behind the triumphant march of the Allies. There are no signs of any stand by the Germans yet; they seem to be fleeing to the shelter of their own Siegfried Line beyond the Rhine, which was built for another purpose—holding the Allies in 1939 while the Wehrmacht knocked out Poland —-and was probably not meant for actual use as a last wall to cover the Reich. In any event, if the retreating Germans can be trapped on the Meuse or on the.Rhine, there may not be enough reserves to man the line. Into Dieppe by the Back Door. It was on August 19, 1942, that British troops, including a very large proportion of Canadians, tried a landing at Dieppe. It has been described as a "big commando raid"—it was certainly on a very large scale, compared with previous commando raids —but there were rumours at the time that something more was intended, if the initial landing had been sufficiently successful. But apparently the Germans had wind of the venture and the element of surprise was lacking. The Allies gained a toehold in Dieppe, but German mobile reserves came up quickly and the invaders had to withdraw, with heavy losses in killed and missing, the Canadians suffering most severely. The Allies penetrated nine miles inland destroying radar arid other installations and fighting deadly battles. The Canadians, who made up the bulk of the force, lost 3372 casualties out of a force of about 5000. Of these 593 were killed. The Allies also lost 98 i aircraft and several of the landing craft employed. But Dieppe was not a dead loss. . It was probably one of Germany's strongest points on the "invasion coast," with chalk" cliffs frowning down on narrow ' rocky beaches. The attackers had to) scramble up wire-filled cliffside gullies under German fire in broad daylight. Yet they got ashore and even landed tanks, though, they were not able to use them effectively. To the Allies Dieppe was full of lessons ill the difficult art of amphibious operations, . and these were fully learned for the success nearly two years later of the grand-scale landings of the Allied armada on D Day. Dieppe had not been in vain.