ROADS TO AXIS CAPITALS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22475, 9 January 1943, Page 5

ROADS TO AXIS CAPITALS

WILL BE TRODDEN BY UNITED NATIONS

Violent Conflicts This Year

By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright (Rec. 9.0 ) WASHINGTON, Jan. 7.

“I do not prophesy when the war will end, but I believe that this year will give the United Nations a very substantial advance along the roads leading to Berlin, Rome and Tokio.”

With these words, President Roosevelt concluded his personal message to Congress. President Roosevelt’s survey of operations in 1942 dealt principally with the war against Japan.

“As early as a year ago we were set. as the primary task in the Pacific war, the destruction of more Japanese war material than Japanse industry could replace. We know that as each day passes Japanese strength in ships and planes is going down and down, and American strength in ships and planes is going up and up. The eventual outcome can be put on a mathematical basis. That will become evident to the Japanese people when we strike at their own home islands and bomb them constantly from the air. “In attacks against Japan we will be joined with the heroic people of China. We shall overcome all obstacles, and get battle equipment into China

to shatter our common enemy,” said the President. “The period of our defensive attrition in the Pacific is passing. Now our aim is to force the Japanese to fight. Last year we stopped them. This year we intend to advance.”

The President disclosed that in the Pacific and the South-west Pacific American airmen were shooting down foyr enemy planes to every one lost, in Africa the proportion was two to one. Dealing with operations in the European theatre of the war, President .Roosevelt described the North.. African, expedition as having already produced' an important effect on the whole war situation. Violent Conflict Of 1943 President Roosevelt said : “The coming year will be filled with violent conflict—a year with high promise of better things. I cannot prophesy. I cannot tell you when or where the United Nations are going to strike next in Europe, but we are going to strike and strike hard. I cannot tell you whether we are going to hit them in Norway, or through the Low Countries, or in France or through Sardinia or Italy, or through the Balkans, or through Poland or at several points simultaneously, but I can tell you that, no matter where and when we strike by land, we and the British and the Russians will hit them from the air heavily and relentlessly. Day in and day out we shall heap tons upon tons of explosives on thejr war factories and utilities and seaports.

“Hitler and Mussolini will understand the enormity of their miscalculations that the Nazis would always have the advantage of superior air power as they did when they bombed Warsaw, Rotterdam, London and Coventry,” said the President. “That superiority is gone forever.”

President Roosevelt directed the attention of Congress to post-war problems and necessities. “We and all the United Nations want a decent and durable peace. Let us remember that the economic safety for the American of the future is threatened unless greater economic stability comes to the rest of the world. We cannot make an American island in either a military or economic sense. Hitlerism or any other form of crime or disease can grow from evil seeds, economic as well as military feudalism. Victory in this war is the first and greatest goal, and victory in peace is next. That means striving toward the enlargement of the security of man here and throughout the world. “It is clear to us that if Germany Italy or Japan or any one of them remains armed at the end of the war. or is permitted to rearm, they will again embark upon an ambitious career of world conquest,” said the President . “They must be disarmed, and kept disarmed, and they must abandon the philosophy which has brought so much suffering to the world. To-day the United Nations are the mightiest military coalition in history. They must remain united for the maintenance of peace, preventing any attempt to rearm by Germany, Italy or Japan. ’ The “Herald-Tribune” and the “Daily News” point out that Mr Roosevelt predicted in unmistakeable language a possible Axis defeat in 1944 by the statement that the “seventyeighth Congress may have the historic privilege of helping to save the world from future fears.”