MOST ENCOURAGING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 1, 2 January 1943, Page 3

MOST ENCOURAGING

GENERAL WAR SITUATION 3 REVIEW OF YEAR Rugby, Dec. 30. uraging change that has in the general war situation during 1942 and the great part the RjLF. has played in helping to throw t|ie Axis forces on the deiensive ue> the main points in an official seview of the war in the air during tne year. The review Details how the entry of .Japan ipto the war strainea untains resources until the united States could enter tne conflict, ana haa the effect on forcing Russia to carry on alone aS the most effective land counter to.the Axis armies. It was only by the! air arm that Britain could help Russia, and help was given by the disruption ol German industries with bombing raids. At the same time the R.A.F. was called upon to meet the U-boaßmenace with the Navy. TheJSpmber Command nad been Russian main assistant, lor the industrial cfentres and communications in Germany were interfered with to such an exflent that it had a material effect on the Russian campaign. The constant combing of the Ruhr prevented coal reaching Sweden, and our attacks on shipping resulted in only 1,000,000 tons of iron ore reaching Germany from Sweden. The raids also had an effect on German morale and efficiency. > as they forced workers to live further from the workshops, and. teddy the German output per unit of labour is only 60 per cent, of pre-war. “Deapite a rigid conservation of forces, the Luftwaffe has been thrown on one defensive," the report states. "Much of its strength is now devoted to the protection of shipping, and it has been found that the Junkers 88 is no match for the Beaufighter. During 1942 it was evident tht the Luftwaffe was moving its reserve more and more forward, and this decline of the. Luftwaffe is the surest sign of a decline-in German military power.” While the British Army, particularly through the Eighth Army, had helped to slteb the course of the war during 1942, tne promise was even more imnortant than immediate achievement, stages the. War Office in a review of the military activities of 1942. In the early part of the year our resources were strained by the entry of Japan Into the war, but the closing months had brought a change from the defensive to the offensive. The Tunisian campaign had forced the Axis to withdraw forces that would have been used ajaffist Russia, and the successes it North Africa had effectually frustrated Axis dreams of a linking of the Euto-ean and Asiatic partners. The Germans had been forced to

spread their forces thinly over France and the Mediterranean coastline, as well as the northern seaboard. The Axis now faced a potential threat of eventual invasion along the Mediterranean from Spain to Turkey, while they had to deal with a defensive campaign in Russia, which had negatived German hopes of a creative ■ pause during the winter. In the operations leading up to the combined United Nations’ offensive, the British Army had played no mean part. The achievements of the Eighth Army stood out and showed what could be achieved by perfect land and air co-operation. The Dieppe raid and the North African invasion had also shown how the three services could , unite to gain a decisive superiority over the enemy. “The British Army is no longer the nlodding and encumbered heroes of Passchendaele, nor the ineffectual gallants swept by a weight of metal to the beaches at Dunkirk, but infantry with mobility, armed with varied, effective weanons and confident that It now has fie measure of the enemy.”—B.O.W.