THE OIL POSITION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 135, 30 July 1941, Page 3

THE OIL POSITION

NEEDS OF AXIS INCENTIVE ATTACK ON RUSSIA In the last analysis it will probably be found that what drove Hitler to the gamble of an attack on Rus>. sia was the pressing need of the Axis for oil. The wear and tear of nearly two years' war, with thSe enormous consumption of military and naval operations coupled, with the destruction of oil depots, stoi-. nge tanks, refineries, and synthetic oil .plants by Royal Air Force raids, must by this 'time have reduced the Axis to hard straits and lean prospects. The Axis has three sources of oi'l. Home production, imports, and Rtocks. Home production from coal would rank high if it were not fop the damage to plants from Royal Air Force raids. The amount -would normally have been about four million tons in the present -year. Russia has supplied little oil to Germany in the past. Rumania has a=n exportable surplus of about five million tons, but transport by rail oi the Danube navigation could hardly convey more than three millidn tons to Germany. American experts believe that Gets many's stored stocks amount to only Rbout a million and a quarter tons, tt was: probably the existence of Rumanian oilfields and stocks in the eastern 'theatre of war that influenced Hitler to attempt a campaign in a region where they would be liandy for transport. On the other hand there was ths risk of attack by air and this Has been realised, as much damage in said to have been done to the main Rumanian oil centre at Ploesti by Russian air raids. On the scale on' which the Russian campaign is being fought the consumption is reckoned at from twelve million to hf< teen million tons a far beyond Germany's sources of supply. It is this that helps to make the position ->t> critical for Germany to-day.

JOHMSOSy RELICS

SAVED FROM AIR RAIDS Mrs Rowel I, the custodian of Dr. Johnson's house in Gougli Square, which was damaged by fire in a raid on London, described to the Daily Telegraph how the greater part of the Johnsonian relics escapcd harm. In the firsit week of the war, she said, she and her daughter removed the valuable-prints, the paintings and the first editions, and stored them in waterproof Avrapping in a large trunk in the basettient. Forced by the fire to leave her cottage, which is the lodge of the house, on the Sunday night, she returned at 5 o'clock the next morning and retrieved the trunk. It had begun to fill with water. It is now in a place of safety. Although the four walls of the house are still standing, Mrs Rowell said the interior and most of the historic furniture were badly burned. "We hope the house can be built," she added. "One idea I have is to appeal to every American who has ever visited it to give a sum, however small."