ALLIED OFFENSIVE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 257, 29 July 1942, Page 5

ALLIED OFFENSIVE

Coming Soon, Says Observer PACIFIC AS WELL AS EUROPE (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) NEW YORK, July 27. The United Nations are on the verge of passing to the offensive, says the Washington correspondent of the New York “Herald-Tribune.” He adds that the belief was stronger than ever during the weekend that a second front in Europe would be opened before long, and that the United States was preparing offensive strokes in the Pacific as well. The correspondent quotes a leading article in the “Army and Navy Journal” in which the belief is expressed that Admiral Leahy, who has just been appointed Chief of Staff to President Roosevelt, will have a “real command,” and that his appointment marks the first step toward a unified high command, which in turn is a prerequisite for an invasion of Europe. The “Herald-Tribune” finds another indication of this fact in a broadcast made by the Fighting French chief in the United States, M. Adrien Trixiern, who said that the French people were now ready to give constructive aid to British and American invaders. “The Axis knows that a revolt is secretly being prepared and that it will burst out the day the Allies land,” said Mr. Trixiern. Feeling Running Strong. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 27. If there is a successful landing by Allied troops in France, these will have behind them immediately a widespread revolt by the French population. This was the opinion expressed at the headquarters of the Fighting French in London by M. Andre Philip, a 40-year-old ex-Socialist deputy for Lyons, who recently came to England at the invitation of General de Gaulle. M. Philip said that the first feeliijg of despair after the fall of France had been changed today to a feeling of bitter resentment against Vichy. This feeling had been growing very strongly in the last eight or nine months, and resistance had been spreading in Paris, in the north, in Alsace, and in Brittany. The feeling in Paris was that the Vichy Government did not exist. M. Philip said that the French people had been angered because the Germans had plundered all their fruit and wine and a great deal of their meat. At the same time there was a growing spirit of revolt against Vichy because freedom of speech and even of thought was being repressed. Vichy boasted of having authority, he said, but the real state of affairs was complete anarchy in everything.

At present the whole atmosphere was very good for a resistance movement. Members of the movement regarded themselves as doing the same thing inside France as elements of the Fighting French who were fighting in battle were doing.

Vichy reports that a military court at Clermont Ferrand sentenced to death three Frenchmen involved in an

“important espionage affair.” A fourth was imprisoned for 20 years. The Geneva newspaper “Tribune de Geneve” reported that 40 persons were killed when a. mine exploded recently undcra train carrying German soldiers to Paris on leave from Cherbourg.

PAINFUL TIME FOR BRITONS

Delay In Intervention

(Received July 28, 11.55 p.m.) LONDON, July 28.

“Popular agitation for a second front lias burst out with renewed vigour in the last few days," says the “Daily Mail.” “Public impatience can be understood. Resolutions and mass meetings are in some ways admirable, but Russia is suffer!’ r terrible losses and making colossal sacrifices, while we apparently are not making an active military effort to help her. It is a position that the British people find almost unendurable.

“The official statement on June 11 that a full understanding had been reached in regard to the urgent task of creating a second front in Europe in 1942 meant one thing to most people—that Britain would intervene on the Continent before the end of the year. Yet there are no signs of such intervention. There must be weighty reasons for delay.”