Wavell may emerge from obscurity of India Command.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 August 1942, Page 3

Wavell may emerge from obscurity of India Command.

Special Correspondent.

Rec. 8.25 p.m. London, Aug. >26. WITJI Mr. Winston Churchill not only safely back from his fourth hazardous wartime 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 the stark truth, that the military situation confrontmg all the United Nations is serious and does not show any immediate sign of getting better. But to admit the gravity of the position is no indication of faint heartedness. ^ Certainly , Mr. Churchill has not shown depression after his journeyings. He looked in the pink of condition and rad'iated confidence.

Here was the nation's leader fresh from the desert battlefield where he had viewed at first hand the military position and, from war-torn Russia and seCret Moscow conferences, where pre"sumably Mr. Stalin . would not hold back information about Riissia's ability to continue resistance against the .Nazis and strike back. His reaction, as he told a Paddington station bystander, 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. , Mr. Churchill told Cairo correspondents what he felt. But confidence cannot be sustained by words alone and that is why the popular demahd for action continues. As The Times remarks: "Neither the Dieppe dress rehearsal nor the progressive hombing of the western nerve centres of Nazi war production have relieved the continuing sense 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-considered action but for strengthening our military organisation and its better* adaptation to meet present emergencies." Some observers express the opinion that a radical overhaul of Britain's supreme war direction is likely to follow Mr. Churchill's horne-coming, with General Sir Archibald Wavell again emerging from the comparatiye obscurity of the India command to occupy a prominent place. The fact that General Wavell accompanied Mr. Churchill to Moscow is regarded as significant. Mr. Churchill will give the 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 was engaged but will present a general account of those- events . and will probably review the general war situation in the iight of the personal knowledge gained during his tour and announce changes — if any. 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 lnspiration. The battle for Stalingrad worked up to a ciimax this week after more than a fortnight's bloody delaying action westwards of the Don elbow, which cost both sides dearly. General Von Bock obviously realises that his tired aimies— they have advanced some 300 miles fighting continuously since early May— are unable to maintain the pace indefinitely, therefore he has thrown in everything available for a supreme blow aimed at overrunning the lower Volga area, thereby hoping to crown one of the , mightiest offensives throughout history. Preceded by a concentrated blitz in which the Luftwaffe employed at least 3000 planes from the south-west, the German spearheads are withiii 35 miles of the city, 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.