THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Monday, October 25, 1943. CRISIS ON THE DNIEPER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25365, 25 October 1943, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Monday, October 25, 1943. CRISIS ON THE DNIEPER

The fall of Melitopol marks another stage in the banishment of Germans from the Russian soil and of Nazi hopes of staving off utter defeat in Russia. The defeat is not yet final. Military theory must still allow Hitler’s legions the possibility of regrouping themselves and turning the tide of war back again upon itself, as both they and the Russians have already done in this epic struggle. But even the Nazi commentators have lost their heart for claiming the present reverses—which they are now admitting—as being only temporary. Whether or not the Nazi High-Command and the savagely-engaged Nazi armies are prepared sto recognise it, there is a confident belief among the free peoples of the world, which must communicate itself to the German people also, that Germany's war is doomed, with the implacable westward drive of the Russians setting the grim theme for the final collapse. On the Soviet front the German armies are everywhere in the considerable danger that must arise from the surrender of key points accompanied by tactical penetrations. For the time the Russians are apparently concentrating on the southern sector, where not one only but several strong thrusts are being made into the body of the Nazi defence system. Melitopol’s loss opens the way for Soviet forces to make a coastward sweep to Kherson, cutting the Nazi forces on the Crimea off from the possibility of succour by land. Their prospects of relief or a way of escape by, sea are, _ of course, remote while the Russian Black Sea fleet remains, as of present report, destructively alert here. From the great bend of the Dnieper the Soviet spearheads threaten the few remaining Ukrainian strongholds of the Germans. Krivoi Rog, which is the communications centre for the southern front, is being approached from the south-west. Dnepropetrovsk is separated now from Kremenchug, to the north, by a strong Soviet thrust, and only the present, desperately fierce fighting can decide the fate of these strongholds Which now provide the Nazis’ precarious foothold in the Southern Ukraine. Farther north the great battle resulting from the Russian challenge for re-possession of Kiev is reaching its climax. The situation here is, from the German point of view, extremely disturbing. It has been more than evident, in the titanic battles on the Eastern Front, that the Russian generals are always prepared to undertake the military extravagance of the frontal attack. But they have not made a specialty of battering-ram tactics to the exclusion of the outflanking movement. Kiev is now in jeopardy by encirclement. These tactics, if they succeed, will render the Dnieper line finally untenable throughout its course, and at the same time must deprive the Nazis of their last chance of retaining their hold upon any considerable portion of Russian territory. The prospect is that Kiev will be defended as long as. Nazi flesh and blood are prepared to endure the Soviet assault; but neither Kiev nor the Crimean peninsula, should the decision be to defend the latter, can be regarded any longer as of offensive value if the rest of the Dnieper defences crumble. | THE PHILIPPINES

“Freedom,” Japanese style, has come to the Filipinos by slow and painful stages. That the offer of it should have been made at all was in the nature of a Japanese admission that the "pacification” of the islands was not proceeding according to plan. Had the Filipinos been abjectly submissive when Japanese occupation of the group became a fact there would never have been any question of political co-opera-tion with Japan, for the harshest military discipline would have ensured it. The Japanese have offered concessions in conquered territories only where a show of magnanimity seemed essential to obtain the support of the populace—as, for instance, in the prior cases of Burma and Thailand. The first overtures were made to the. Filipinos when General Tojo visited Manila last May and promised, after much organising of the islands’ appeasers, “ independence within the year.” Soon the Japanese-dominated Philippine Executive Commission began to exercise wider powers, and "then there appeared a Japanese-spon-sored National Service Association, this being an openly Fascist organisation functioning under the name Kalibapi. A former Mayor of Manila, one Jorge Vargas, is president of the Kalibapi and a prominent member of the puppet Government which is now reported to have entered into a treaty of alliance with Japan. The Vargas children have been sent to Japan ostensibly for education, but the popular belief is that, in true Nazi style, they are being actually held as hostages for Vargas’s good behaviour. The pro-Japanese party in the Philippines has influential leadership, as it includes three former Supreme Court judges and the present Chief Justice. But there are still strong opposition parties, and these, working underground politically where they are not actually waging guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in the several islands forming the group, are determined that the fight for independence shall be carried on until liberation is won. The former President of the Philippines, Manuel Quezon, who is living in exile in the United States, recently broadcast a message to his compatriots in which he urged that, before listening to Japanese promises of political freedom, the Filipinos should examine the Nipponese pattern for “ independence ” in Korea, in Manchuria, and in the occupied provinces of China. Independence would come, he assured his people, and the time of its return might not be far off, but it would be brought not by the Japanese, but by the armed forces of the United Nations, in terms of President Roosevelt’s and General MacArthur’s earlier undertakings. The action of the so-called Philippine Assembly in promising an amnesty to “ persons engaged in seditious or guerrilla activities provided they swear to become good citizens” affords the clearest indication of the problems of “ pacification” which the invaders have yet to solve. As long ago as November of last year the Japanese were claiming that “ peace and order had been restored in every corner ! of the islands. Yet even after Tojo s j visit in May there were shrill JapanI ese threats that independence could | not be granted until the “ misguided elements ” had been brought

under control. These latter, it seems, were still holding out against strong Japanese forces on Cebu and Negros Islands as well as on the main islands of Mindanao and Luzon. The Japanese have promised the islanders that their economic needs will all be satisfied if they co-operate with the new regime. The controlled Manila radio has, indeed, argued that “ it is easier to understand on a-full stomach,” and has suggested to the disaffected Filipinos that once their livelihood has been assured they will definitely join “ the majority of our people in a determined march forward to independence.” But the march, it seems, is making only slow progress, Too many Filipinos are yet to be persuaded of the advantages of becoming “ good citizens ” according to the Japanese model.