WAR STRATEGY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 June 1941, Page 6

WAR STRATEGY

CRITICISM IN BRITISH PRESS LESSONS OF THE BATTLE OF CRETE. REVISION OF IDEAS NEEDED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON. June 2. The evacuation of Crete is producing questioning from the public and Press which is more widespread and more heart-searching than on any previous withdrawal. All the newspapers underline the necessity for a revision of ideas of what can and cannot be done under 1941 methods of warfare. The “Daily Mail" asks, “When are we really going to get down to the job of winning the war? The country is seriously concerned with the way things arc going. Mr Churchill declined to believe that there was uneasiness about Greece. Perhaps he can be persuaded that the people are deeply disturbed aboiit Crete. The pattern of British evacuations has unfolded with almost mathematical exactitude, leaving territory of immense strategical importance in the enemy's hands.

“We arc now worse off than before Greece, because the Greek islands are hostile and Tobruk is menaced from Crete. In Norway. France, Greece, and Crete there was miscalculation or misinformation."

DEFENCE OF CYPRUS. “The Times" in a leading article says: "We cannot afford in Cyprus a repetition of the events of Crete. It is not a general inadequacy of equipment which has lost us Crete, though the equipment may not have been all it ought. “To almost every observer it appeared from the first that success in the defence of Crete depended to a very large extent upon constant air support. That is a point where criticism deserves an answer, and one' essential question is whether and at what moment it was known that the defence would have to be conducted without that support.” FACTOR OF AIR SUPPORT. The “Daily Telegraph" (reports a British Official Wireless message), after paying a tribute to those who fought their last fight so well, comments on Mr Churchill's recent statement that the British Imperial troops were deprived of vital air support because there were no aerodromes that could be used. "If the reason was inadequate defences, we have paid a heavy price for the lesson that aerodromes must be well armed." After emphasising the necessity for equipment on a scale to meet “the last foreseeable need,” the “Telegraph” continues: “A complete interplay of naval supremacy, air power and the army—our weakness in Crete —must be assured now that the danger to Egypt, Cyprus, Syria and our whole Mediterranean campaign has been made greater. If such unified operations of aircraft and the fleet as we saw in the chase of the Bismarck had been practicable, over the Aegean, the battle of Crete would have had a very different ending. THE ENEMY’S LOSSES. "To read the lesson aright, we must not, of course, exaggerate the advantages which the Germans have gained. Their losses in men and aircraft have certainly been very great. The battle, it is apparent, has not only cost them .more heavily, but has lasted much longer than they expected, so that by the time our troops left Crete we had made an end to their Quisling in Iraq. "Yet Britain will read as the most urgent lesson of Crete superiority in t'he air. . . . Some material for a better review will doubtless be available very shortly, but for the moment it will suffice to point out that Crete was defended on its merits on account of its strategic importance without any such moral obligations as. were present in the defence of the Greek mainland. At present it is possible only to express satisfaction that extremely heavy losses have been inflicted upon the most specialised and least readily replaced of the enemy's forces, regret that such a heavy sacrifice has not availed to secure victory, and the warmest admiration for the magnificent courage and determination displayed from first to last bv all the forces which took part in the epic defence of Crete.”