BRITISH STRATEGY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 126, 29 April 1941, Page 5

BRITISH STRATEGY

FOILED THE ITALIANS. COR RESPONDENT'S DESCRIPTION (Press Assn.) AUCKLAND, April 28. That tlie Imperial Eorces during their advance across Libya had hail to rely in some cases on captured provisions for food supplies was vouched for by Mr Maxwell N. Corpening, military correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, who is visiting New t Zealand on his return to the United i •States after his fourth trip round the world as a roving reporter in the last . lour years. Mr Corpening, who left • tor Wellington to-night, is studying the world military situation and will I investigate'conditions in New Zealand » before leaving for San Francisco on the Honolulu Clipper on Friday. ! Fresh from Egypt and Eritrea, Mr ‘ Corpening. who until 1924 was a member of the United States regular army, praised the British strategy that hau ruined Italy’s African empire. A clever ruse led to the fall of Sidi Barrani. A small number of men with motortrucks camouflaged a 0 v>um. r.nd with light artillery chose a high piece of ground to tiie left of the town and drove round in large circles, giving ! the impression that a large British ' force was approaching from that direc- ‘ tion. While the decoy was operating j a big body of men advanced from the south and took the town.

The Imperial Forces in the north of Eritrea, with whom Mr Corpening was in the field until a few days before the fall of Keren, consisted of Indian, Sudanese, and British troops, while those on the other Eritrean Iront were South Africans. While in South Africa lie found that, although political controversies were rife and that ‘‘politicians there were still fighting the Boer War,” the country was almost 100 per cent, behind the British war effort. With a white population of two million, South Africa had mobilised between 125 000 and 150000 men. General Smuts, a Boer with a following of his own people and the English, had made South Africa a united country.

While in Moscow Mr Corpening formed the opinion that Russia had a better army than the world believed. He went to Germany in' July, but was expelled from the country for cabling a story containing details of a peace offer said to have been made by Hitler through the King of Sweden to Britain. 1 After the Battle of Britain not even Hitler would make another invasion attempt, said Mr Corpening. The bombing over Britain now was purely destructive bombing, and was not paving the way for another invasion attempt. Hitler’s army was the best in the world—in fact, the best the world had ever seen—but it had not yet been properly opposed from Britain.