CRITICAL PHASES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24945, 18 June 1942, Page 3

CRITICAL PHASES

AXIS ONSLAUGHTS MR CURTIN'S WARNING (Rec. 1.45 a.m.) MELBOURNE, June 17. The fate of the Soviet Republic is in the balance. The news from Libya is not good. Submarine warfare against Allied shipping has reached a high-peak figure. These were the grim warnings of the Prime Minister, Mr J. Curtin, in a brief review of the war position in the course of a national broadcast to-night in support of the £35,000,000 War Loan, which will be closed at the week-end. Russia, he said, was meeting the full fury of the Nazi onslaught. The defeat of Rusia would mean a crushing blow to the Allied cause. It would strengthen Japan's position against China, Australia, and New Zealand. Russia was fighting for her very existence, and the maintenance of everything she had built up since 1917. It was vital that she should be helped to the utmost. Nothing must be withheld that in any way would contribute to her ultimate triumph over the powerful forces arrayed against her. The position in the Middle East was no less critical, said Mr Curtin. The most casual observer realised that a complete setback by Marshal Rommel s fofces would have grave repercussions on Allied interest in the Suez canal and Indian Ocean zones. In addition the Australian life-line would be severed, leaving Japan in complete control of Australia's destiny. Mr Curtin went on to refer to the Coral Sea battle. He said the Australian Government and people joined in the highest admiration and pride in the splendid victory American naval and air forces had achieved over Japan. That engagement was in the nature of a merciful deliverance to the people of the Commonwealth. Enemy submarine warfare had more recently been conducted off the coast of Australia, bringing the peril right home, but the enemy had not gone unscathed. Events such as these, added Mr Curtin, emphasised the vital fact that Australia could not divorce herself from the depredations of the enemy, in more distant theatres of war. It was vital to Allied strategy that Japan should not take Australia. It was equally vital to the United Nations' cause that the war against Japan should be won. If Australia was lost then Hawaii, and other Pacific outposts would be endangered and all hope of retrieving the Philippines, Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies would disappear.

Mr Curtin mentioned that Australia had lost six warships since the war began, but the remaining units were still well in the fight.