The Gisborne Herald. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES” GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JAN, 6, 1945. COMMAND IN THE WEST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21605, 6 January 1945, Page 2

The Gisborne Herald. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES” GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JAN, 6, 1945. COMMAND IN THE WEST

ktA't-.Tins 1 , almosi u, tin 1 military set-up which proved so frtiiiri.il <luriiio, and allot the Normandy landing. General Eisenhower has .placed the held command of portion of the Allied forces in the West under Field-Mar-shal Montgomery, and that of another portion under the American General Bradley. The reversion was determined upon before Christmas, it: is announced, and was not previously made public in order to avoid giving information to the enemy. The effect of the new order is that Montgomery will have full control of the British, Canadian and American armies north of the Rundstcdt salient, white Bradley will command the Allied forces operating to the south of the bulge.

In British eyes, the change will obviate one of the most serious possibilities which the early success of the Rundstcdt counter-offensive raised—that the British and Canadian armies north of the salient might be cut oil from their sources of supply in the Scheldt estuary and also from direct . ummunication with the main bulk of the Allied forces operating on the Western Front. There can be no doubt that this was in von Rundstcdt’s strategical plan. Had he been able fo split the Allied armies by reaching the Scheldt estuary, the plight of the northern wing of the forces opposed to him would have been most unhappy. The British had one disastrous experience of encirclement, when German armies found easy access through French-held territory to the Channel Coast in the neighbourhood of Boulogne in 1940. A large part of the British forces evacuated from Dunkirk reached' the coast only after lighting their way through enemy lines. It is not to be wondered at that a second threat of encirclement, to which the British and Canadian positions in the north are peculiarly vulnerable, should rouse the utmost concern in Britain.

The centralisation of field command, which followed the break-out from the Normandy bridgehead, has been criticised on the grounds that it put the Supreme Allied Commander in too close touch with the actual fighting. thus making the strategic direction of the war subject to purely tactical considerations. The announced i e-turn of field command to the respective American and British leaders should rectify this position. It will, for one thing, enable the commander of the Allied forces in the north to exercise his judgment in the protection of his flanks and rear. Subject to the major strategy of the western campaign he can thus insure against the possibility of being trapped. He can also organise, according to the tactical position lie faces, countermeasures which may bring the enemy to account. The change should reinvigorate the campaign in the north and instil fresh confidence in the conduct of the Western Front as a whole.