A HARD ROW TO HOE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 18, 20 October 1944, Page 4

A HARD ROW TO HOE

THE warning by His Worship the Mayor, when discussing the question of possible arrangements for peace celebrations, that the Allies had still a hard row to hoe, comes as a sober warning to those of us who are inclined to consider that the war in Europe is now almost; over—bar for the shouting. A glance at the battle-fronts show us that the greatest obstacles are still to be overcome, whilst the confused fighting in Holland and about the border town of Aachen appears to have almost assumed a stalemate the lightning advance following the victorious Battle of Normandy. Germany as we have mentioned before can be expected to use: every means of extermination against her attackers before the elimination either from within or without of the desperate men, she has elected to shape her destiny. In no place as yet have the. Siegfried Line defences been entirely penetrated. The Americans have definitely brokeit through the outer line, but in their own communique admit that there are. greater barriers still to be surmunted, before them. The 300,000 German prisoners of war captured in France and in the !Low Countries, lepresent on the main, according to a recent cable, reserve divisions, garrison troops and conscripted labour. Battalions recruited from countries over-run by the Nazis. Behind the frontiers of the Reich, are the remnants of the veteran divisions who first stood with Rommel and took the shock of the Allied spearheads around Bayeaux. and were later withdrawn, and with them are the tens of thousands of the Hitler Youth Movement. Of the two elements we prefer to think that the latter —boys from 14 years to 18, is the most dangerous. These lads have known nothing but the prescribed training which breeds perfection to the fanatical Nazi concept of racial superiority and arrogant contempt for all else but the deification of Adolph Hitler and adulation of right of the Aryan blood to rule and dominate . These youths can be expected to fight recklessly and without fear. Their slaughter, when the defences of the Reich are finally pierced and the Battle of Germany begins in grim earnest, will probably be one of the concluding tragedies of this most bitter war. That they will fight, and glory in fighting, is beyond doubt as is also the fact tht Hitler will utilise their unquestioning enthusiasm and misguided patriotism to the utmost before he too sinks beneath the crushing weight of armed Democracy. With him will go, we hope forever the monster of Naziism which came within an ace of enslaving the world.