A WHITE CHRISTMAS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 21, 3 November 1944, Page 4

A WHITE CHRISTMAS

DREAMING of a White Christmas, has been the theme of a three-year-old song. Possibly it will be fulfilled this year by the restoration of peace, at least in Europe. The whiteness of the emblem of peace, is undoubtedly the symbol which the composer had in mind when he wrote the tender theme which has had such wide appeal. Christmas 1944 will be the sixth which has been clouded by war, and though there are many in high places who are convinced that the conflict will continue over and after the. European winter, we have nevertheless the confidence of General Montgomery to offset that contention. 'Christmas," he said, "will see the termination of hostilities with Hitler's Germany." In the past 'Monty' has been uncannily near the mark in all his calculations from Alamein to Tunis.. His latest, and possibly greatest forecast may yet confound those of lesser insight. In all countries but Germany, the hope will be ardent that he is proved correct, but in these days of swift and epoch-making events it i? hard to venture any sound opinion. It pays best to confine ones thoughts to hopes alone, for the battle of Germany, the Nazi stronghold itself, can be guaranteed to be. full of freak features, for and against both sides. We have yet two months in which to behold the last visciousness of the dying bogey of Naziism—a force which five years ago bade fair to subjugate the world. Today bereft of its warpaint and arrogance, it is but a pitiful apology of its former grim magnificance. Its death struggle will be as fierce and as brutal as was its progress over the helpless peoples of the conquered nations. Will it in its turn be conquered before the greatest of all Christian festivals, and provide us once more with a 'White Christmas/