BRITAIN’S PART

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 25 January 1944, Page 2

BRITAIN’S PART

ALLIED WAR EFFORT A REVEALING COMPARISON Melbourne, Jan. 14. American estimates that America will provide 73 per cent, of the land forces when the Allies invade Europe may not be precisely accurate, but it is a fair picture of Allied manoower needs. According to the “Melbourne Herald’s” London office British people are not surprised by the figure, but they are surprised that there should be astonishment, verging even on resentment, in some American quarters where the magnitude of Britain’s four-ye2r war effort is still not comprehended. In the light of this attitude a "Melbourne Herald” representative has sought what facts can be made public in Britain. Some of the latest figures present the problem in its true perspecGreat Britain has a population of under 48.000.000. compared with America’s 132.000.000. The ratio of British people of military age is much lower. On population figures the percentages —-U.S.A. 73 per cent, and Britain 27 per cent. —are in proportion Britain's population was approximately 27 per cent, of the total of the two countries. Eritain’s full mobilisation is nearly j 25.000,000 men and women. The fightI ing services is secret, but it can be | stated that the R.A.F. alone is certainI ly more than one half the size of the j British Army in the Great War. when I about 5.000.000 men were enlisted in the British Isles. LARGE FORCE IN MIDDLE EAST Britain began the war with an army of 518.000. of whom only 218.000 were regular troops. This necessitated tic conscription of manpower to buila a modern mass army, but most of this army is not available for the “second front.”

Eighteen months aco Mr Churchill revealed that more than 1.000.000 British troops were in the Middle East and that there were more British troops in India than ever before. Since then the Mediterranean and South-East Asia Commands have been heavily reinforced.

The maintenance of big garrisons at Gibraltar and Malta, in Cyprus and Palestine, at Aden and in Abyssinia, Madagascar and Ceylon and many other outposts has taxed Britain’s manpower in a manner none the less real because all forces have not been continuously engaged. British service casualties until last December were nearly 550.000 (while civilian casualties from bombing exceeded 100.000. one half of which were fatal). America’s total casualties so far approximate those of Australia (given officially the other day as 55,890 since the war began). TAX ON MANPOWER The output of Britain’s war factories, at least until recently, exceeded America’s output, although millions of British war workers are devoting much of their time to A.R.P. and Home Guard duties, and in other ways supolementing the work of hundreds of thousands of their fellow-countr.ymen engaged in full-time home front duties, such as the observer corps, ack-ack. ana coastal defences. Manpower has been further taxed by the* task of clearing up bomb debris, repairing vital factories, and maintaining communications, besides compensating for production hours lost due to alerts, the disabilities of blackout and curtailment of civilian transport. But this is only one-half of the story. British crews man the bulk of the vast Allied merchant fleets. The Royal Navy, which to-day is greater than ever before, does most of the patrol! ing and convoying in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. For example, the British Navy did the whole job of convoying the North African invasion force, and it would undoubtedly share with the R.A.F. the brunt of the task of clearing and guarding the sea and skies for a “second front” landing. Creation of a “second front” is largely a shipping problem for British ships and British crews. Probably a dozen 10.000-ton ships are needed to transport a single division overseas, and about 1500 railway trucks to move it overland. SHIPPING REQUIREMENTS And this is only part of the problem of maintaining a division in the field. An armoured division uses daily 70,000 gallons of petrol. 350 tons of [ ammunition, 120 tons of food and 50 I tons of spare parts, j If 60 mixed divisions were landed lat the outset in Western Europe, they ! would require more than 6.000.000 tons jof shipping. It would be Britain’s task | to ensure that these men, stores and j equipment were marshalled at British springboards and transported across the Channel.

If the United States supplied threequarters of the ground combat forces, she would play a decisive role, but not more decisive than that of Britain.

The American magazine “Life” recently stated that most Americans had the mistaken idea that the U.S.A. was already engaged on a gigantic scale, whereas the number of American troops actually fighting was less than the number of Rumanians fighting for Germany. It added: “Only 15 American divisions have yet seen action, and no more than six or seven have been engaged at any one time.”