UNITED NATIONS ON VERGE OF OFFENSIVE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 176, 28 July 1942, Page 5

UNITED NATIONS ON VERGE OF OFFENSIVE

WASHINGTON VIEW Revolt In France Would Aid Allied Landings U.P.A. and British Wifeless. Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, July 27. The United Nations are on the verge of passing to the offensive, says the Washington correspondent of the New York Herald-Tribune. He adds that the belief was stronger than ever during the week-end tnat a second front in Europe would be opened before long, and that the United States was preparing offensive strokes in the Pacific as well. The correspondent quotes a leading article of the Army and Navy Journal, in which the belief is expressed that Admiral Leahy, who has just been appointed Chief of Staff to President Roosevelt, will have a "real command," and that his appointment marks the first step towards a unified High Command, which in turn is a pre-requisite for the invasion of Europe. The Herald-Tribune finds another Indication in the broadcast made by the chief of Fighting France in the United States, M. Adrien Trixiern, who said the French people were now ready to give constructive aid to British and American invaders. "The Axis knows," he said, "that a revolt is secretly being prepared and that it will burst out the day the Allies land." If there is a successful landing by Allied troops in France these will have behind them immediately a widespread revolt of the French populations. This was the opinion expressed at the headquarters of the Fighting French in London by M. Andre Philip, 40-year-old ex-Socialist Deputy for Lyons, who recently came to England at the invitation of General de Gaulle. M. Philip said the first feelings of despair after the fall of France had been changed to-day to a feeling of bitter resentment against Vichy. The feeling had been growing very strongly in the last eight or nine months, and resistance had been spreading in Paris, in the north, in Alsace, and in Brittany. The feeling in Paris was that the Vichy Government did not exist.

M. Philip said the French people had been angered because the Germans had plundered all their fruit, wine and a great deal of their meat. At the same time there was a growing spirit of revolt against Vichy because freedom of speech, even of thought, was being repressed. Vichy boasted of having authority, he said, but the real state of affairs was complete anarchy in everything. At present the whole atmosphere was very good for the resistance movement. Members of the movement regarded themselves as doing the same thing inside France as elements of the Fighting French, who were fighting in the battle were doing.