The Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, June 3, 1942. COLOGNE RAID.

Grey River Argus, 3 June 1942, Page 4

The Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, June 3, 1942. COLOGNE RAID.

If tho very successful defence of Sydney Harbour against Sunday nights Japanese submarine raid focuses attention on our side of the world, much bigger things are to be noted on the other side. The enemy lias evidently “got nowhere” in Libya, and may even there be facing disaster. In Russia, however, it is decidedly too soon to imagine that .the, spring offensive has been scotched. It is evident that at Kharkov the Russians have been heavy losers in men as .well I as the Axis forces, whlie the latter are resuming; their offensives in more than one place., Probably the Russian feitulation has had a bearing om.the British decision to stage far; and away the greatest air raid of the war on Saturday night last, when more than twelve hundred planes, wiped out a great part,, of, the, city of Cologne, killing? according to the latest reports, ‘some-, thing like twenty fhorjsaiid people, and wounding three- times that, number, one; otit of' every' three seriously., An exodus from Rhineland cities is now reported to be one result, gnd it can be judged that the enemy munition industry has' sustained a blow from whiclf Recovery in that vital 'quarter is likely to be an impossibility. The Axis must have reaehj ed the stage now of being injferior in air strength; That is one reason why repetitions of the .Cologne havoc rare threatened by ‘the British ,in broadcasts telling German workers their only safety will be in dropping Hitler and his henchmen as quick!j’ as they can jettison 'them. Apart from the merely military aspect, however, the fiendish manner in which the German-military leaders prosecuted air raids earlier in the war against British cities forgotten if the enemy complains about the destruction of Cologne and the record loss !0f .life there. The Germans were asking for the like of this raid when they thought they had no remote risk of the like Now they have been repaid with very heavy interest indeed, and if anything is calculated to crack up'their cohesion it is the Jr-isk of other cities being similarly ■ decimated or destroyed. By all ! accounts the Germans remain runified, and it goes without sayjug that the great rJass of the ■ nation is iinxious to win the war. 111. will be,-, only when t . a definite jmajority is made to realise the '•Axis cannot win, but faces de-

.feat, that the dictatorship will be Undermined and ended. It may be one of the more unfortur.pte aspects of war that, instead of the Prussian nr Nazi strongholds, the part of Germany to sustain this stunning blow should be one in which the population are industrious rather than wardike, and long suffering into the bargain. But the raid was frankly one dictated by military necessity, rather than by any emotional consideration. It will have undoubtedly a favourable effect on the Eastern Front, because the enemy must now detach still more aircraft for defence, and reduce the numbers engaged in attack. The Cologne raid is a demonstration of Britain’s confidence that the time to put on the screw has come. The' wider disposal of Axis aircraft leaves Germany open to attack as never before, and, as the Bus sian Air Force is fighting as admirably as the Red Army, it is no far fetched notion to foresee the R.A.F. offensive soon succeeded by ia second front.