THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, June 12, 1941. LESSONS FROM CRETE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24631, 12 June 1941, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, June 12, 1941. LESSONS FROM CRETE

It was no part of Mr Churchill’s purpose in his statement in the House of Commons to attempt to minimise the painful circumstances of the battle for Crete. The loss of men, the greater proportion from the two southernmost dominions, was very heavy. The withdrawal from Crete represented a strategic reverse to the British in the defence of the Middle East. These things the Prime Minister acknowledged with characteristic unflinching honesty. He admitted, too, that the lack of weapons—mainly of anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes —was the principal factor in making the position of Crete’s defenders untenable. The Nazis achieved a costly success in an airborne assault on the island; their efforts to support the attack from the sea failed terribly. But'it is clear from the losses of British naval units, both during the battle and in the evacuation, that the audacity of the plan to reduce a well-defended island salient from the air was on this occasion justified. That such tactics would succeed again is most unlikely, and the sacrifice of speci-ally-trained men, of special equipment, and of aircraft was such as to daunt even such ruthless exponents of blitz” as the Nazi High Command. Grim lessons have been learned from this tragic episode. Above all, it has underlined again the fact that in modern war there can be no successes without a sufficiency of equipment. The strength of machines must complement the strength of men. The disability under which the British forces carried on the struggle in Greece, and again on Crete, happily is one that can and is being remedied. Not without significance is the fact that in the advance into Syria the Imperial troops are stated to be in all probability using some of the most modem American equipment, while aircraft built in the United States are operating over the territory. Figures given in the House of Commons by Mr Churchill show that production in Great Britain, far from having slowed down, as Mr Hore-Belisha rashly suggested, is still increasing. It has been a long and difficult process by which Great Britain has made up the losses of material' in the withdrawal from France, while at the same time gearing up production to an unprecedented level in new war material as distinct from replacements. Only when the history of this war is written will the precarious balance in the months succeeding the French collapse be revealed. But there can be confidence now that, with American aid, the production scales have been tipped in our favour. The steady increase that can now be promised in fighting material provides assurance that in the Middle Eastern campaign the British will be able to plan on an ascending scale to counter and anticipate the enemy, as they are already doing in Syria. The searching inquiry into the failure in Crete which members of the British Parliament have conducted has elicited an explanation which, if it makes the affair no less tragic in the human sense, is logical and realistic.