NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 101, 23 January 1943, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

News from liome is tlie general desire of men serving overseas. Their private letters give the family and personal information, and where necessary deal with business matters, but there is a wide range of general news that can best be covered by tho publication of a newspaper. That was the case in 1914-18 and the little paper published in London and sent across to Flanders and France was eagerly read. Many men are deeply interested in some form of sport and others want information of happenings in tlie Dominion, and these tilings can be provided by the sort of journal issued in the Middle East, and the one which it is now proposed to publish in the Pacific area. If care is taken to make tbp news cover as wide a field as possible, free from propaganda, it can be taken for granted that the smallest item will be of exceptional interest to some soldier or group. There may, as is evidently hoped, be an opportunity for exlending in this way the work of the Army Education Service, but. it will probably be found that if the “Kiwi,” or whatever name tlie paper is given, adopts wliat. is known as tabloid journalism, short paragraphs covering a multitude of eients, big and little, it will lie enlliusiaslically received by tlie men overseas. Io tlie man who comes from some small town, or remote district, a reference to happenings there will constitute the highlight of tlie news.

According to a correspondent of the London "Times," the increasingly critical military situation for Germany has prompted Hiller to adopt plans which bear .some resemblance to the Rathenau I’hin of 1918, which was Ihe large-scale substitution of women for men in the factories, Ihe shortening of tlie German defence line, and the virtual conversion of the whole country into an immense fortress, organized for prolonged resistance. But. what, might, have seemed practicable in 1918 might well be impracticable now, for Ihe factor of air-power now influences the situation to an extent undreamt of in the last war. If Hitler adopts the plan suggested, he may find his country converted, not into tt fortress, but into a vast target area upon which the concentrated bombing of the air forces of the United Nations will be directed with appallingly destructive effects? Tlie fortress idea is similar to the "hedgehog’’ tactics used by the Germans on the Russian front, but the power and destructive effect of the Russian heavy arlillet.) ami the rain of bombs from above are demonstrating that these strongpoints are by no means invulnerable.