A SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 183, 30 April 1940, Page 7

A SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION

Though the Germans still press their drive on Trondheim, they are being met in several places by Allied troops and the news contains encouraging features. In (he first place the Germans have been repulsed again in the Gudbrandsdal Valley. Every such check to the enemy gains valuable time for organizing resistance to the drive on Trondheim, which, rather than the recapture of (he town, is now the Allies’ first task. Secondly, there are several reports from trustworthy sources that Allied forces are steadily continuing to land to strengthen those already there; and thirdly, the greater resistance now offered to German bombers seems somewhat to have reduced their eftectiveness. The German force which set out across country to thieaten the Dombas-Storen railway has now been engaged by Alfred troops, though it has covered a good deal of ground. North of Trondheim there is little happening, but the Allies are strengthening their toic.es and posoitions, and their commander hints at action bcfoie long. The only place where the Germans seem to have made progress is alon" the Oslo-Bergen line where, as far as is known, the Norwegians have no Allied help and arc doubtless feeling a lack ol modern equipment. The laying by the Navy of minefields guarding the approaches to Narvik should relieve it of some work in that region and make even more difficult any German relief or attack from the sea. There have been several more casualties among German transports. A more intriguing report, broadcast from Germany, is generally taken to mean that entrances to two of Russia s preserves in the Gulf of Finland have been mined —but by whom it has been done is not stated. These reports are accompanied by anothei from a Swedish correspondent in Estonia that Russia has had something to say to the Germans about the neutrality of Sweden. Ribbentrop’s “revelations” of Allied plans to invade Norway are being shot full of holes, and the Speaker of the Norwegian House of Representatives has added another broadside by claiming that his Government has irrefutable proof that Germany prepared detailed plans for the invasion of Norway months ago. The only consistency in the German propaganda is its consistent misrepresentation. Even when no threat exists to the ample oil supplies of the Allies, reports on successive days of rich fields being found in Turkey and France are of more than passing interest.