COMMENT AND REFLECTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 24280, 22 August 1942, Page 5

COMMENT AND REFLECTIONS

At last we appear to be setting about the actual accomplishment of victory, and abandoning the long and dispiriting phase of mere asseveration of its ultimate certainty. On this latter theme even the golden ritual of Churchill’s words and phrases was beginning to fail as stimulant to a nation so often promised action and so constantly presented with failure. It had become the case stated by old Omar of “much argument about it, and about, but evermore came out by the same door as in I went ” —in our case invariably the door of disillusionment and defeat. That phase of inaction and complacency is over. We, are likely indeed to suffer defeat on many more occasions before we Secure victory, but at least the dramatic follow-up of the Prime Minister’s visit to Russia, where a pledge of completely unified strategy was ratified, shows that this conference represented something more fruitful chan the erection of just another feral and misleading facade; was rather the prelude to assumption by Russia’s allies of an offensive that sooner or later must compel the enemy to conform to their strategy. The big commando raid on Dieppe was 'a more precious pledge to the people of Russia in the killing misery of their present situation than a dozen pacts signed; they could not but construe it as a full dress rehearsal of diversionary interference in Western Europe on a scale at least adequate to diminish the intolerable pressure _ under which _ them military machine is at last beginning to reveal cracks and fissures.

So that something big has been accomplished by the raid if only by its removal of the suspicion instilled by our enemies that Britain is ready to let the Soviets ‘ do the job ’ or, failing to accomplish it, leave the enemy so prostrated that he could be finished 'f at small cost. But there is more to it than that. The very bombast of Germany’s claim to have smashed in a few hours an amateurish attempt at invasion carries its own disproof, since from the initiation of the operation the 8.8. C. at regular intervals - exhorted the French people in the area to lie perdu and take no part in what was merely a large-scale commando, raid with limited objective and a set hour for withdrawal. And German sneers notwithstanding, it appears from the first, rather meagre, reports to have been a substantially successful operation, costly, but surely worth the cost. The fact to remember as a happy augury of things to come is that a Canadian-British-Fighting French commando of probably 15,000 men successfully carried the beaches, though the element of surprise was denied them by mischance, fired the town of Dieppe, wrought much, havoc among the gun batteries and radio location stations, and inflicted at-:- least as many casualties as they sustained. More would doubtless have been accomplished but for the mischance that some of the transport units were blundered into by an enemy sea patrol before any of the commando had disembarked, so that a general alarm was sounded and the guns (the main objective) were speaking before the beaches were attained. This mischance, a turn of luck’s wheel likely to be experienced in any big venture, militated _ against complete attainment of objectives, and might, indeed, have nullified the whole operation but for the tremendous efficacy of the great air umbrella of fighters that covered the landing and the subsequent offensive and withdrawal. The mere fact that the enemy lost almost as many planes as we (91 to 98) is significant, since in an adventure of this type the protective mission of the umbrella considerably hampers the orbit of the planes, and bestows all the advantage with the other side. Altogether it was an exceedingly good show —a significant demonstration of what can and will be accomplished when the full deployment of America s might is placed ’lougside Britain’s. The enemy may affect to sneer, but when we consider the big boil-over of long-contained hatred that is duo among the Nazi-yoked peoples of France, Belgium, and Holland when the first real threat to their taskmasters develops, we may well doubt the reality of Nazi contempt, discounting it as largely exhibitionist —a facade to conceal growing uneasiness. If, immediately, we could have followed up the Dieppe raid by another on the same scale we should probably have extended this uneasiness into something approaching panic! just as a second and third air_ raid on Cologne before measures of civilian evacuation could be taken might well have committed the German population to the cruel ordeal Poland and France suffered, with the same result of crumbling’morale.

If the hour lias not yet struck when .we can compel the enemy in Europe to conform to our strategy, something closely approximating that consummation has been achieved by American initiative in the South-west Pacific, where for the first time Japan’s strategic gamble has taken an unfavourable turn that may be irredeemable if wo can compel him to commit his fortunes to a full-scale naval battle in the locale we have occupied. Since the treacherous attack on Pearl Harbour the enemy has entered upon a, gamble' that has spread his stakes from Wake Island in the east to the Andamans in the west; from Japan in the north to, New Guinea and the Solomons in the south. This has meant a vast dispersal of force dependent upon the maintenance of thousands of miles of sea communications. This immense traffic line is threatened, if not cut, by the dramatic descent or an AmericanAustralian force upon the Solomons and the effective occupation of the best harbours and airfields of the two most strategically important islands. Japan clearly faces a dilemma of the first dimension. With the security of her seaways imperilled she must either risk a large portion of her naval strength to answer the Solomons challenge, or expose her dispersed units to partial paralysis for lack of munitions and reinforcements.

There is no need to enlarge upon the desperate plight of the Russians. Manifestly the Nazis are carrying to success a' blitzkrclg of unprecedented dimensions, and it looks as though very shortly they will be in possession of the whole area from Stalingrad to the port of Tuapse south-west and to Grozny duo south. The situation in the Caucasus sector, while not quite clear, is clearly bad. The drive for the Grozny oilfields (second largest in Russia! is pressing on, though at much retarded speed, and the mention of heavy fighting for a pass in the Pyatigorsk area may possibly mean that the enemy intends to attempt a breach of the Caucasus by the great military road through the mountains which ends at Tiflis. Converging attacks upon Baku from the latter and from Makhatch Kata on the Caspian (via the coastal pass) would implement the Nazis’ favourite pincers attack.