ALLIED LIFE LINE

Southland Times, Issue 24680, 27 February 1942, Page 5

ALLIED LIFE LINE

INDIAN OCEAN VITAL SUPPLY ROUTE FOR MANY COUNTRIES (8.0.W.) RUGBY, February 25. Mr Roosevelt’s warning that the'world war must be seen as a whole and not only in terms of Russia, Libya, Burma, Java or any individual entity in the struggle, is felt in London to be of paramount importance. The Axis Powers are undoubtedly looking at the spring campaign as a complete world picture, and a military expert here has drawn attention to the danger of a junction between the Germans and Japanese through the Nazi military power aiming at a successful break through the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, while Japanese submarines and warships sever the Indian Ocean sea routes. In this connection he stresses the vital importance of the Indian Ocean, especially to Allied operations in the Middle East, where supplies must come up the Persian Gulf as the Mediterranean is closed as a regular route.” "The Indian Ocean,” this expert states,” has become one of the great nerve centres of the war. It is like a railway junction, for ships instead of trains. The stations which it serves are South Africa, British East Africa, the British armies of the Middle East,

Russia, India, Burma, China, and Australia. Australia, though face to face with the enemy, is part of this Indian Ocean system, and at the same time the terminus of another sea railway, which runs by way of New Zealand to Hawaii and thence to the United States.”