MESSAGE OF HOPE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25239, 31 May 1943, Page 2

MESSAGE OF HOPE

THE ENSLAVED PEOPLES “DELIVERANCE AT HAND” (Rec 10 p.m.) LONDON, May 30. General Smuts, broadcasting a message from the liberated countries of Africa to the enslaved and tortured peoples of Europe, said that the days of deliverance were at hand. The liberation of the Mediterranean had been only the first stage in the liberation of Europe. The armies that fought their way through Abyssinia to Addis Ababa, the armies that chased the enemy from Cairo to Tripoli and the shores of Tunis, and the armies that pushed from Algiers to Bizerta and Tunis had all been pursuing a great strategic plan that would find a climax in the invasion of Europe. From North Cape to the Pyrenees, from Gibraltar to the mountain cliffs of the Dardanelles, the shaken enemies had kept fearful watch, while Europe waited for the days of retribution. The enemy was baffled and bewildered. The initiative in attack was in Allied hands, and the element of surprise could be exploited. General Smuts outlined the tremendous effort and organisation entailed in the North African series of campaigns, and added that the result fully justified the conviction he had always urged upon"'’those finally responsible for Allied strategy—the convicition that ejection of the Axis forces from Africa must be an essential preliminary to the invasion of Europe. "The achievement of this aim now makes possible the concentration of our overwhelming resources , upon the European theatre of war,” General-Smuts said, “and while the world waits tense with expectation for the next step we send ! tortured Europe this clarion call: ‘Be of good cheer. Be ready. The day of deliverance is coming.’ ” General Eisenhower, broadcasting to Europe, said: “We have jolted the enemy’s morale, for in this theatre one of the best and proudest of his armies has been utterly destroyed.” The British First Army and the American Second Corps had been tempered in the heat of battle and had become formidable fighting machines, and through them other Allied units going into the fight for the first time would be better prepared and more ready to absorb the first shocks of the conflicts. The British Eighth Army—which the enemy reluctantly admitted to be the finest organisation of its strength in the world —had been confronted by strange battle conditions in Tunisia and had made advances in technique and professional ability. “Beyond these benefits accruing from the North African campaign,” said General Eisenhower, “one of the greatest of our gains was the Allied team play that reached a high degree of proficiency—a spirit that also inspired the French troops fighting alongside us. This demonstration of unity on the battlefield, unity in adversity as in victory, is sorely puzzling the Axis. Our solidarity terrifies them because they complacently counted on the divided counsels and inter-family quarrels that have been characteristic of the Allied campaigns in former wars. “We are ready to undertake any further tasks our countries may choose to assign us. We stand as a single body, determined that there will be no cessation of effort until, working in concert with all the other forces of the United Nations, we shall have brought the last army of Germany, Italy and Japan to its inevitable Tunisia.”