INVASION OF EUROPE

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 March 1943, Page 5

INVASION OF EUROPE

“AT ANY MOMENT” AXIS HOLDING PLANS (Rec. 11.35) LONDON, March 7. Decisive Allied action against Europe may be expected at any moment, says the “Sunday Express diplomatic correspondent. There is clear evidence that the Axis is preparing a double plan of campaign to meet the expected United Nations attack. Hitler and Mussolini have drawn up this plan. First, the concentration of forces inside those parts of Europe dominated by them. Secondly, a political and diplomatic offensive aimed at disrupting the United Allies, thus weakening their armed strength. The correspondent adds that me main targets in the non-stop air attack against the enemy in Europe have been transport and supply facilities, with a view to preventing speedy dispatch of reinforcements to the scene of the attack. Mr. Roosevelt revealed that the Allies will attack in many places at the same time, thus free transport will be a vital necessity to the enemy, adds the correspondent. Largely for this reason, Goering has hundreds of bombers inside Germany. He will not let them be risked in attacks on Britain. Whatever we do against Germany, these will be used in the attempt to hold our forces until the Axis reinforcements can reach the battlefield. As part of the concentration of Axis forces Italian troops have been recalled from Russia. They will stay in Italy, and it is regarded as certain they will be reinforced immediately by German troops. This will stretch still more the depleted strength of Hitler’s army. Authorities in London expect an intensification of German naval activity, and the use of both U-boats and surface craft to upset our convoys. This has been anticipated in our general plans. More difficult to handle will be the diplomatic and political offensive, the main theme of which will be the Bolshevik bogey, which still frightens some of the smaller nations.

“OFFENSIVE” SUPPLIES

LONDON, March 6

The “Sunday Express” gives prominence to a reporter’s description of a mammoth ordnance depot “somewhere in Britain,” where bedding, cooking utensils, tools, and general service stores are piled up row after row, each 20 feet high, filling one of Britain’s largest warehouses and overflowing into warehouses and buildings elsewhere. A senior ordnance officer, asked where all this was going, replied: “That is a secret known only to those at the Casablanca conference and a few at the War Office. I don’t know myself. You are the first civilian to see this tangible evidence of the fighting to be done this year in a theatre of war yet to be opened.