THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Saturday, November 27, 1943. THE PRIMARY TASK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25394, 27 November 1943, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Saturday, November 27, 1943. THE PRIMARY TASK

It was an invigorating summary of Allied progress in all theatres of war that the King was able to give to the United Kingdom Parliament this week in the Speech from the Throne. Its keynote, as was to be expected, was the determination of the British Government and people to prosecute the war against the aggressor Powers in Europe and Asia until exhaustion has forced them into unconditional surrender. Until victory is won, his Majesty emphasised, that must be the primary task. The King referred to the mounting scale of the offensive against Germany, which he said, not without adequate justification, was due to the devoted and untiring efforts of the British people. He reviewed the remarkable sequence of Allied successes in the Mediterranean area, in Russia, at sea in the battle of convoy against the U-boat packs, and in the air over Germany and occupied Europe, and spoke confidently of the approaching time when, after Hitlerism had been crushed, the whole massive armament of the British Commonwealth and the United States would be turned against Japan in the Pacific. There has indeed been, in the past year, a dramatic change in the fortunes of the nations at war against both Germany and Japan. Command of the seas and the rapidly developed resources of the United Nations have, in that period, placed the issue of the world struggle beyond all doubt. Within the year North Africa has been cleared of the enemy, with losses on a scale that may be crudely estimated from the fact that the Tunisian campaign alone cost him some 261,000 casualties, while he also sacrificed immense quantities of equipment and stores. From North Africa the struggle was removed, by quick stages, to the Italian mainland itself, and already airfields in Central and Southern Italy are being used by Allied heavy bombers to carry the air war to hitherto unexposed parts of Germany and the satellite Balkans. In Russia a year ago the German line ran, east of Moscow, through the Rzhev and Lake Ilmen sectors to Leningrad; west of the capital, via Voronezh, Stalingrad, Mozdo, and Maikop to Novorossisk on the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea. To-day at many points the Russian armies are a good deal nearer ,to their pre-invasion frontiers than to their front line of last November. The relief of Stalingrad cost the enemy the loss of 91,000 men of his Eighth Army, including 24 generals and 2500 other officers. In the Donbas and the Ukraine, territory of immense strategic importance has been regained, and the last German hopes of being able to utilise Caucasian oil, the wheat of the Kuban, and the industrial potential of the Donetz Basin have vanished. According to a Russian official claim which is now some six months old, two years of campaigning in Russia had cost the Germans more than 6,000,000 men, 56,000 guns, 42,000 tanks, and 43,000 aircraft. There is fairly general knowledge of the shattering damage inflicted on the German war machine by the British and United States Air Forces, operating from both British and Mediterranean bases in the past twelve months. One industrial centre after another in the Reich has been devastated, with a loss of output that must be accompanied in marked degree by a decline in civilian morale. The point to be borne in mind in considering the year’s achievements by the Allies is that the assault on Hitler’s fortress is ■ now being directed and coordinated according to a strategic plan which recognises the vital inter-dependence of all fronts. As the Germans retreat in Russia their rear communications and supply bases will become vulnerable to bomber attack from the west and the south. The Allied invasion of Italy, according to General Alexander, has involved the diversion of some forty German divisions from the east to the south. The unrelenting bombing of Europe from Britain has brought about a situation in which, according to experts, more than three-quarters of Germany’s available fighter strength has been drawn away from Russia to the west and south. These are factors which justify his Majesty in declaring that the coming year will see an even greater weight of attack brought to bear upon the enemy, and that Britain and her Allies may go confidently forward in the task of delivering the peoples of the world from fear of aggression.