Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1940. MEETING THE NAZI ONSET.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1940. MEETING THE NAZI ONSET.

TT is too soon yet to base any definite conclusions on the reported progress of the furious continuing battle in wM the Germans are endeavouring to smash their way the Allied armies on the Somme and the Aisne. The possibility must be considered that Italy may be about to second the Nazi onset in such a way as to subject the Allied defences to a still heavier strain before the British Expeditionary Force can be re-established at full strength The facts m sight, however are at least tentatively encouraging.

Today’s reports show that with the enemy throwing new masses of men and tanks into the battle, the Allies have made some limited withdrawals but the French insist that these are strategic and declare that they are made well worth while by the enemy’s suicidal losses, particularly on the wide trout on either side of the Oise on which he has thrown huge numbers of infantry into the battle and has had many of them mown dd(wn in masses.

German losses in material also appear to be mounting apace, notably in the ease of tanks, of which the French claim to have destroyed as many as 400 on one day and to have continued the destruction on a similar scale on successive days It was estimated a day or two ago that the Germans had lost 2,500 tanks since the invasion of Belgium, together with sixty per cent of their dive bombers. Losses of this magnitude evidently * cannot continue without crippling the enemy s striking power.

There can be no doubt that the Allied aircraft have demonstrated their superior fighting power in air combat and in bombing and that their relentless raids behind the enemy lines are doing an enormous amount of damage in many ways, one of them being heavy inroads on Germany’s limited supplies of petrol.

Though they are being subjected still to tremendously heavy attacks, the Allies are in some ways much better placed to withstand them than they were in the battles which made possible the withdrawal from Dunkirk of 335,000 men, in spite of all that the German land and air forces could do to prevent it. Very great significance undoubtedly attaches to the failure of the Germans to envelop and annihilate the Allied armies m the Dunkirk region and to the decisive defeat of the enemy air force in its efforts to prevent the evacuation.

Precisely what power'of attack the enemy is still capable of developing in France, with or without the aid of Italy, remains to be seen. It remains true, however, that anything short of decisive and overwhelming success will leave him faced by the assurance of ultimate defeat. The Allies are engaged in a stern and grim struggle of which the end is not ytet in sight, but they are striking back powerfully and with effect, on land and in the air. In the bombing of Berlin by French naval aircraft there is a new and impressive development which may be the earnest of much to follow. The prospects opened appear to be summed up very well by the Parliamentary Secretary to the British Ministry of Information (Mr Harold Nicholson) in the statement that: “If the Allies hold out, Hitler will not last the pace.”