ZERO HOUR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 81, 15 June 1943, Page 4

ZERO HOUR

THE fall of Pantellaria and Larnpedusa into Allied hands, the massing of men and materials at strategic points in Britain's well-guarded coastal belts, the terrifying intensification of the aerial offensive against industrial Germany —all these things point to the fast approaching zero hour, which will herald the inevitable battle for world freedom on the continent of enslaved Europe. The same insignificant little island off the French coast, which according to Air Marshall Goering was to be bombed into submission has licked her wounds, healed them and now emerges strong and valourous, backed this time by a further two hundred millions of the world's people, and overwhelmingly superior in her sea and air power. The battle for freedom is at hand! Something of the tactics to be employed may be guaged from the events preceding the fall and occupation of Pantellaria when sea, land and air forces combined with clock-like precision in the joint manoeuvre, which cost the Allied landing forces barely a hundred casualties. To the astonishment of the world the island fortress surrendered meekly after the lifting of the first bombardment barrage. On all sides the Italian garrison beheld the grim lines of Allied storming craft waiting in readiness for the signal to attack. The naval and aerial part of the conquest had been so completely successful that there was practically no need for the army to deal with the garrison at close quarters. As at El Alamain, at Halfaya Pass and latter throughout Tunisia, the white flags appeared like mushrooms amid the ruin of the defences. Tactics, of bitter experience; tactics new and terrible, born of grim battling against a ruthless enemy in Normandy, Greece, Crete and Africa, they have now been embodied in the British text book of war. Lessons from the all destroying progress of Hitler's iron Panzas, lessons from the parachutist'terror in the unoffending Netherlands, lessons from the bombing and wanton destruction of the English homes and countryside—all these will be combined in the launching of the final Waterloo destined to outbully the bully and to rid Europe once and for all of the hideous stain of Hitlerism and all that it stands for.