Soviet Has Powerful War Machine

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 100, 29 April 1941, Page 7

Soviet Has Powerful War Machine

Germany’s Best in World MUCH-TRAVELLED AMERICAN WAR CORRESPONDENT Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, April 28. That the Imperial forces during their advance across Libya had had to rely i i some cases on captured provisions f«. r food supplies was vouched for by Mr. Maxwell N. Corpeniug, military correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, who is visiting New Zealand on his return to the United States after his fourth trip round the world as a roving reporter in the last four years. Mr. Corpcning, who left for Wellington to-night, is studying the world military situation and will investigate conditions in >Tew 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 had ruined Italy’s African empire. A clever ruse led to the fall of Siut Barrani. A small number of men with motor-trucks camouflaged as tanks and with light artillery chose a high piece of ground to the left of the town and drove round in large circles, giving the impression that a large British forco was approaching from that direction. While the decoy was operating a big body of men advanced from the south and took the town.

The Imperial forces in the north of Eritrea, with whom Mr. Corpcning 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 front were South Africans. While in South Africa he found that, although political controversies were rife and that 4 ‘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 150,000 men. General Smuts, a Boer with a following of his Sown people and the English, had made i South Africa a united country.

Leaving Vancouver in January of last year, Mr. Corpening visited Tokio before continuing to Peking. From Peking he travelled via Manchuria by train across Siberia to Moscow, a tedious journey which took a fortnight. Hoping to cover the Busso-Finnish war from behind the Russian lines, the correspondent arrived at Moscow after the peace terms had been accepted. While in Moscow Mr. Corpening formed the opinion that Russia had a better army than the world believed, not as he was quoted by a Sydney newspaper as saying, “the finest army in the world and just as well equipped mechanically as the German army.”

Arriving in Berlin in March of last year, Mr. Corpening left for Switzerland in May. He returned to Germany in July, but was expelled from tho country for cabling a story containing details of a peace offer said to be made by Hitler through the King of Sweden to Britain. That month he was given an opportunity of retracting his story or getting out of Berlin. In two hours he left Germany and travelled through Switzerland, Italy, Rome, Spain and Portugal to England, where he stayed while the “Battle of Britain” was won in the skies.

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. Mr. Corpening travelled via Portugal to Portuguese West Africa and thence to Capetown. He visited Johannesburg and Pretoria and flew from Durban to Cairo and on to Eritrea. He arriv ed *t Auckland via Australia.

From 1924 up to four years ago Mr. Corpening was in an administrative position on his newspaper and now he says that he is very tired of roving tho world.

The censorship was the hardest obstacle that foreign correspondents had to face to-day, said Mr. Corpening. In Germany while he was there, the news was not directly censored but if a correspondent sent his paper news of which Germans did not approve that correspondent would be asked to leave the country. The news from Great Britain was directly censored. The restrictions in Egypt were the greatest ii the world and it was there also that Mr. Corpening found himself in trouble with the officials. After his experiences in Germany and Egypt, he it anxious to know what censorships and restrictions he will meet in New Zealand.