STRUGGLES AHEAD

Grey River Argus, 29 November 1943, Page 6

STRUGGLES AHEAD

Allied Air Blitz MEANT TO SMASH GERMAN POWER. RUGBY. Nov. 26. Lord Sherwood, Additional Undersecretary of Air, when speaking to newspaper men, said: The only promise I can hold out to Germany is that our blows will increase in weight and grow’ more deadly in effect until the war power of Germany is broken and smashed. It is for them to decide Let them make the choice. Do not ’ think that the German High Command will have any more sympathy for the suffering of its own civilians than it has for those of the countries the Germans have overrun. There is only one thing which influences the German leaders’ minds; that is the power to win. Until that is knocked from their hands they will remain ruthlessly in command waging war with all their immense powers. That is why we continue to smash and destroy everything that goes to build up that, power. That is how victory will come. It is difficult to get information out of a country so completely closed to the outside world, but our photographs show that enormous havoc has been created. As poetic justice, the German industrial centres are one by one being rubbed out. There is much loose talk of a break in German morale, but I cannot emphasise too strongly that morale Is not one of our objectives. We are striking at the military power of Germany, at its war factories and industries and its total ability to make war. Comparisons are commonly drawn between present conditions in Germany and in 1918. Do not press the analogy too far. I am a complete believer in air power as a aecisive weapon of war, but I am not so blind to the lessons of history as not to know that before the collapse pomes you must first break the power to wage war by smashing the military machine. In 1918 it was the defeat of the German army which set on foot the negotiations for an armistice. I am not one of those who can prophesy a speedy victory. Dark days lie ahead, though darker days are past. We are facing a resolute anfi crafty foe who still nossesses tremendous' military power. The struggles ahead may. be the most bitter we have undertaken, but if we use our energies to their full, and if we do not deflect ourselves from our inflexible resolution to victory, our task will be made easier and the days of peace draw nearer. BRITAIN’S FUTURE AS MILITARY POWER. RUGBY, Nov. 26. The Minister of Production (Captain Oliver Lyttelton), after discussine Britain’s weakness in 1939 in a speech at Oxford, said: But we shall end the war as a great miltary Power. We must see that we remain, if not a great military Power, at anv rate strong enough to defend ourselves and defend the weak. Peace must be a marriage of peaceful intentions and the means to prevent the peace being broken. Do not let us again, within our lifetime ask a Foreign Secretary to make bricks without straw, or peace without an

air force, or keep neutrals neutral on a diet of defeat, or engage in the least profitable of all human occupations, which is bombarding aggressors with paper, or suppressng war with unanimous resolutions, with one or two signatories secretly dissenting. Unless we can have peace it is not much good thinking about or discussing economies, employment, social security, indvidual enterprise, and higher standards of life. We can get peace while we are strong. We can only be strong by recognising that we must have sacrifices. Peace must be worked for. AXIS PLANS GERMAN LONDON, Nov. 27. “Germany and Japan are now at the stage of preparations for real, decisive action.” states Martin von Hallensleben, the chief military correspondent of the official German news agenev. “We may safely conclude that Germany and Japan have held the most far-reaching military talks with a view to establishing a strategy against Britain and America. What is more, they have the means " hich iustifv them .being sure of I final victory.”