FAILURE IN ITALY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25503, 5 April 1944, Page 5

FAILURE IN ITALY

OBJECTIVE NOT ACHIEVED LESSON FOR INVASION (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, Apl. 4. “ It is no use glossing over the fact that the Allied campaign in Italy has been a failure so far as achieving its objectives is concerned,” says the New York Times correspondent with the Fifth Army. “Not only are the Germans still at Rome, but they have yielded very little ground since the turn of the year in terms of broad overall strategy. The Allies have succeeded in tying down some of Hitler’s best armoured and motorised divisions, which the Fuhrer would like to withdraw for reserves against the western blow, but the Allies have also been forced to devote considerable effort to achieve this secondary advantage.

“Viewed as a lesson for invasion,” the correspondent continued, “ the Italian campaign has been valuable. The Allies learned never to under-estimate the enemy. German generalship is excellent. German mastery of the terrain is exemplified by the holding of Cassino with far fewer men than the attackers had and far fewer pieces of artillery.” “ Some of our leadership in Italy has been bad, while the planning of our generalship has not been notable,” says Mr Hanson Baldwin, in the New York Times. “ The liaison between the. Brititsh and the Americans, and between the French and the Poles requires much improvement. The Allies are less fiexable than the enemy. We depend too much on air superiority. No matter how clearly Allied planes rule the skies they cannot pick up troops from foxholes and push them through a fortified line.

“Many military men in the United States hold the opinion that our development of the Anzio beach-head has been sluggish and it should not have been established if we had not the strength to follow through. In the recent Cassino attack all the available forces were not used. “Anzio was a test of German reserve strength which Germany failed to meet despite the need for a clear-cut victory. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that Germany is spread thin in ground strength as in the air. Future historians may write that our defensive successes at Anzio represented a tacit admission of forthcoming German defeat, but that defeat is still unaccomplished. The final test of our global strategy is still ahead.”