NEED FOR TEAM SPIRIT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25304, 14 August 1943, Page 5

NEED FOR TEAM SPIRIT

ALLIED AID NOT FULLY EVALUATED

(Rec. 1 a.m.) NEW YORK, Aug. 13. Discussing the renewed Russian demands for a second front, the correspondent of the New York Times. Mi Hanson Baldwin, asserts that the Russians refuse to realise the tremendous significance to them of the air front over Germany. This, he says, is a major front keeping many. German planes occupied in attempting to repel the Allied air assaults and slowly helping to reduce the Germans’ ability to wage war. “The Soviet leaders have failed to estimate properly the value of the British and American efforts in North Africa and elsewhere,” says Mr Baldwin. “The invasion of North Africa diverted 500 to 1000 German planes from the Russian front, and some planes have recently been transferred from Russia to Western Europe and Sicily. Mr Baldwin alleges that the refusal of the Russians to permit the use of th=ir territory for bombing bases caused unnecessary American casual-, ties in the recent bombing of the Ploesti oilfields. He points out that greater bomb-loads could have been carried if the American planes , had been based on Krasnodar, only 625 miles distant, instead of in North Africa, which is thousands of miles away. Furthermore, the air bombardment of Germany could be extended by the use of Russian bases. “ Russia, which is a land Power, has no real conception of sea-power or air-power,” Mr Baldwin says. “ Mutual understanding must be achieved quickly, but it will not be achieved without greater frankness and more team spirit on the part of the Russians. It will not be achieved by hiding our light under a bushel. The Russians must understand what the British and Americans have done and are doing in this war as we understand and admire the courageous and’ indomitable Russian sacrifices.”