ACTION IMMINENT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20875, 29 August 1942, Page 3

ACTION IMMINENT

BRITISH STRATEGY MR. CHURCHILL’S TOUR CONFIDENCE iNSPIRED (By Telegraph—Preas Assn. —Copyright.) (Special Correspondent.) (9 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 28. With the Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, not only safely back from his fourth hazardous war-time journey but already' hard at work, there is a general expectation throughout London that important decisions are imminent. No competent observer here seeks to conceal (he stark truth that tho military situation confonting all the Allied Nations is serious and does not show any immediate sign of getting better. But to admit the gravity of our position is no indication of faintheartedness. Certainly Mr. Churchill has not showed depression after his journeyings. He looked in the pink of condition and radiated confidence. Here was the nation’s leader, fresh from the desert battlefield, where he viewed at first hand the military position, and from war-torn Russia and the secret Moscow conferences, where presumably M. Stalin has not held back information about Russia’s ability to continue her resistance against the Nazis and to strike back. His reaction, as he told a Paddington station by-stander, was that he was refreshed rather than tired, which, coupled with his Cairo reference to the forthcoming “great and decisive events,” should engender throughout the United Nations the same sober confidence that Mr. Churchill told Cairo correspondents that he felt. Demand For Action But confidence cannot be sustained by words alone. That is why the popular demand for action continues. As The Times remarks: “Neither the Dieppe dress rehearsal nor the progressive bombing of the western nerve centres of Nazi war production has relieved the - continuing sence of an inadequacy in British military achievement at a time when our Russian allies face a supreme crisis—a sense which translates itself into a demand, not for premature or ill-con-sidered action, but for a strengthening of our military organisation and its better adaptation to meet the present emergencies.” Some observers express the opinion that a radical overhaul of Britain's supreme war direction is likely to follow Mr. Churchill’s homecoming, with General Sir Archibald Wavell again emerging from the comparative obscurity of the Indian command to occupy a prominent place. The fact that General Wavell accompanied Mr. Churchill to Moscow is regarded as significant. Mr. Churchill will give his first public account of his journeyings to the House of Commons after the summer recess. The Prime Minister will be unable to give much detailed information about the secret conferences in which he engaged, but willpresent a general account of those events and probably review the general war situation in the light of the personal knowledge gained during the tour and announce changes—if any. Russian Determination Mr. Churchill is reported to be particularly impressed by the Russians’ indomitable determination to fight on at all costs—a determination which he found inspired by a profound and unquenchable hatred of the enemy. The Russians certainly need that inspiration. The battle for Stalingrad worked up to a climax this week after more than a fortnight of bloody delaying action westwards of the Don River**, elbow, which cost both sides dearly. General von Bock obviously realises that his tired armies—they have advanced some 300 miles fighting continuously since early in May—are unable to maintain the pace indefinitely. Therefore, he has thrown in everything available for a supreme blow aimed at over-running the Lower Volga area, thereby hoping to crown one of the mightiest offensives throughout history. Preceded by a concentrated blitz, in which the Luftwaffe is employing at least 3000 planes, from the south-west the German spearheads are within 35 miles of the city, the loss of which would be the most serious blow Russia has yet suffered and would intensify the need for counter-action from Britain and America.