FIXING V DAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25180, 18 April 1945, Page 7

FIXING V DAY

NEED FOR CAUTION FIGHTING STILL TO COME (Reed. 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 17 Expectations that V Day may be announced within a few days are premature, says the Daily Mirror. The British Cabinet has decided that no peace announcement can be made until the German Army facing the Red Army has also been broken up. The Daily Mirror adds: "There have been statements that events are moving so rapidly that Mr Churchill will make a statement on the war before next Thursday—the dav fixed for his next big speech. This is most unlikelv, because nothing has happened so far to make-it necessary. The statement that Mr Churchill intends to announce V Day on Thursday can also be discounted."

The Times, in an editorial, asks what, in default of a general surrender of Germany, will the Allies regard as effective victory. The paper adds: "The collapse of resistance in the Reich may not signal the end of the fighting" or justify a proclamation of V Day. It is very possible, even after the administration of conquered Germany has passed effectively into Allied hands, that substantial forces will continue to fight, perhaps in Italy and Norway. "With Allied soldiers still under fire, it will be difficult to feel that the occasion for festivity has really arrived. There is a widespread sense that preparations to celebrate victory have been over-advertised and over-dramatised. Whenever the last German surrender comes, there will still be a whole war to win in the Far East." , A New York Herald-Tribune correspondent, broadcasting from the Western Front, quoted General Eisenhower as saying "There will not be a V Day until Germany has been completely occupied and the German Army completely destroyed."