PREPARING TO STRIKE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 May 1943, Page 5

PREPARING TO STRIKE

ALLIES’ EARLY MOVE

GERMANY KEPT GUESSING

(Recd 12.55 p.m.) LONDON, May 19.

“We are not likely to allow Axis Europe any great length of.time to recover from the battering it has just had,” says the Press Association's military ’ correspondent. “The next phase of the war may come soon. The first blow in Russia is likely to come from the Germans but the Red Army is ready not only to meet this third attack, but also to deliver a counter blow which may send the enemy reeling back. There is an eerie pause at the moment but it can be assumed that Britain and America are assembling vast forces to strike at a time and place which we hope will take the enemy by surprise. That is a factor which may well affect events in Russia. An attack on Europe hangs like the sword of Damocles over Germany’s head. She has had to make dispositions in such a way that she can have strategical reserves available wherever the sword may fall.” The Swedish newspaper, “Social Demokraten,” reports that the Germans are fortifying the Swedish frontier. They evidently expect that connections with Sweden will.be severed in the event of an Allied invasion.

INSTRUCTIONS TO FRENCHMEN.

(Rec. 11.20 a.m.). LONDON, May 19. French underground newspapers with circulations totalling several millions, are issuing invasion instructions to French resistance groups. The instructions are as follow: From the moment of the Allied landing, all members of the resistance movement will be considered mobilised, and will he supplied with arms. All economic activity must be paralysed. There must be a general strike. All Vichy I police must be dealt with —imprisoned or killed. All patriots in camps land prisons must be liberated. Occupy all key posts, public buildings, 'and radio stations, and replace all the .Vichy Administration’s leaders. I The French underground movement believes the Germans plan to arrest all males between the ages of 18 and 56, immediately the Allies land, and intern or deport them from France. Advices reaching London state that Paris is now a city of old men. Any able bodied young Frenchmen are picked up on sight and deported to Germany. Avoiding this Gestapo dragnet is the most important task of every Frenchman.

CLIMAX NEXT YEAR

NEW YORK, May .19.

“The completion of the Tunisian campaign presages the beginning of an assault on the fortress of Europe from the south,” says Hanson Baldwin in the “New York Times,” in an article on his recent tour of the European war zone. . The aerial attack from the west has grown steadily, though slowly. Some British factories have recently increased their output 30 per cent., with only a 5 per cent, increase in labour. This should enable the bombing forces based on Britain to be increased to a size commensurate with their gigantic task. The real bombing of Germany will start some time later this year and will reach a thunderous climax in 1944, when armadas of a size which is now only dreamed of will darkqn Germany’s skies.” . ’

NOVOROSSISK FRONT.

LONDON, May 19.

The Germans are still trying to find weak spots in the Russian positions north-east of Novorossisk, but all their attacks have been thrown back. ~ x x, The Moscow radio says that the German positions here are .very strong, but Russian guns are systematically destroying them. A Soviet military spokesman said in Moscow last night that on the Novorossisk front Red Army men had breached the German positions at many points. They had stormed important strategic heights and all German counter-attacks had been repelled with heavy losses.

GERMAN AERIAL LOSSES

(Recd. 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, May 19. Great air battles continue in tne Kuban, where the Germans have brought in new squadrons from (Crimean airports, but the Russians (still retain the initiative. The “Red I,Star” reports that the Germans have lost 500 planes in the past three .■weeks on this front, not counting l planes destroyed on the ground. The {.■losses included numerous fighters of /the latest types. ' • . . . I The Russians in the Lisichansk ■bridgehead, under cover of an artillery barrage, have reinforced the de- | fence lines captured from the Ger!mans.