COMMON TASK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25560, 13 June 1944, Page 4

COMMON TASK

LIBERATION OF EUROPE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE TO KING (Rec. 7 p.m.) RUGBY, Jan. 11. President Roosevelt, in a message to the King on the occasion of his Majesty’s birthday, said: “This solemn hour in the history of our two countries and of the world is a fitting occasion to express the deep feeling of the people of the United States for the people of the British Commonwealth. We share a common fortune as brothers in arms and a common task in the liberation of Europe. The spirit which is bringing victory must be the spirit in which we seek to establish lasting peace. The friendship between our peoples has been sealed in the common Struggle. It will be made stronger by common achievement.” The King replied: “The destinies of mankind have indeed entered a his-* toric hour. I and my people are deeply conscious of the never-failing sympathy which the people of the United States have extended to us in the years of peril through which we have passed. As our nations stand shoulder to shoulder in the vanguard of the great struggle which will finally free v the world from the menace of slavery it is my constant prayer and confident hope that the bonds between them, tried in the fire of dangers, jointly endured and jointly survived, will link them indissolubly in the -high task of bringing to mankind the blessings of peace.” The chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the U.S.S.R., in a birthday message to the King, congratulated . the British forces on their successes in Italy and on the liberation of Rome. He added: “ The landing of the Allied forces which has begun on the territory of France gives an assurance that the combined blows of the Allies against Hitlerite Germany will be crowned with complete and final victory over our common enemy.” In reply, his Majesty expressed appreciation of the felicitations on the success of British- and Americap arms, and said the Western Allies shared the Russian confidence in the outcome of the operations so auspiciously begun in France. His Majesty also referred to the great contribution to the downfall of Nazism made by the Russian armies.