WINTER STRATEGY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 250, 16 December 1940, Page 4

WINTER STRATEGY

THAT the battle for Britain will rage without intermission during- the winter months is again made clear by the latest concentrated air attack on London described as being as fierce as any sincte September. After wreaking death and desruction in brutal fashion over selected provincial cities, Hitler has turned again to the capital, in the vain hope that the cumulative material and moral damage may break the will and determination of the British people, to see the struggle through to an ultimate victory. Neither the de struction wrought by these night raids nor the interruptions to production should be underestimated; the answer to the night bomber has ye.t to be found, a fact which Germany knows well to her cost. Yet though the winter may intensify the ordeal of the people of Britain, crowded as they will be for longer hours into bleak air raid shelters, there is no sign that British industrial strength, much less the spirit of the. populace, will be broken in these savage raids. Even now there is/ no certainty that Hitler will, not revive his invasion plans during the .winter fog and darkness—but we do know this, that the hazards have immeasurably increased and .while surprise is one of his major weapons,, it is his way to exploit the weaknesses of his adversaries,, not their strength. Thus it is that the Sunday Times aeronautical correspondent holds that Germany's policy of trying to knock out ths Royal Air Force has apparently been abandoned in favour of a direct frontal attack against British industry and ports, a blockade by strangehold on shipping approaching British ports', particularly from America, and by a diversion in the East. Probably the most serious will be the attack on shipping; we have read how quickly Coventry managed to resume the greater part of its production after the Luftwaffe's merciless raid, and the New York Times tells us that so far British ports have not been unduly seriously damaged by German raids, even though Southampton is temporarily almost out of commission, and Merseyside has been extensively damaged. The search for the line of least resistance has already taken Hitler to the Balkans. Rumania fell as easily before his intrigues as Hungary and Slovakia, but here his progress has been halted, while the wreckage of Mussolini's military ambitions strews the gaunt Albanian defiles, and- his battered navy flees from Taranto and is further battered in the flight. Because of the Greek debacle,, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, with the terrible lesson of Rumania's fate before them, have, taken heart. These countries with a Turkey that has more steadfastly withstood the Axis current, valiant Greece, and with British naval power expanding in the Eastern Mediterranean, -may yet effectively block Hitler's: eastern thrust. Whether the great raid by the British forces in the Western desert will be followed through to become a, major attack lies in the hands of Sir Archibald Wavell. Whatever may be his tactics,, the progress 'so far is very impressive. Knowing that increasing quantities of American, weapons will be in Britain's hands by the spring, Hitler will strain every means in his powdr to weaken her during the winter, but history will in all probability name November and December as the turning point of the war.