VAST ALLIED FRONT
FROM ARCTIC TO WESTERN DESERT ASSURANCE OF FULL AID TO RUSSIA. RECENT EVENTS IN MIDDLE EAST. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) RUGBY, September 9. Turning to the eastern theatre in continuing his review of the war, Mr Churchill recapitulated the course of events in Iraq from Rashid Ali’s coup d’etat to the return of the Regent. He revealed that 1,500 soldiers and aircraftmen cn the Habbanyah Air Station “turned the tables in a most spirited manner and, despite ?. hostile superiority of three to one, drove the enemy off with heavy losses” before the relieving force arrived. Explaining the Nazi failure to send parachutists and airborne troops, Mr Churchill said these had been largely exterminated in the Battle of Crete,
where over 4,000 of these special troops were killed and a large number of troop-carriers destroyed. The BritishIraq Treaty was now being loyally observed by both sides. Dealing with the political situation in Syria, Mr Churchill reiterated that Britain had no ambitions in Syria, but was there only to end the war. “However, we must make it quite clear,” he added, “that our policy and that of our Free French Allies is that Syria shall be handed back to the Syrians, who will assume, as soon as possible, independent sovereign rights. We do not propose that this process shall wait until the end of the war.”
DEFENCE OF EGYPT. Continuing, Mr Churchill said that on their eastern flank, the Army of the Nile hgd struck two heavy blows at the German forces which had reoccupied Cyrenaica. Those forces found themselves unable to advance upon Egypt without destroying the strongheld of Tobruk, firmly held by British and Australian troops. Heavy attacks made in the Western Desert in the middle of May and the middle of June, while they did not succeed in forcing the enemy to retreat, yet played a great part in bringing the enemy to a standstill. Mp Churchill added that powerful reinforcements had reached j the Army of the Nile, and ho felt considerable confidence that Egypt would be successfully defended from a German invasion across the Western Desert. HITLER’S VANISHED HOPE. Referring to Russia’s'magnificent resistance, Mr Churchill said the successful withdrawal of a vast front in the teeth of the Nazi invasion had dispelled Hitler’s hope of a short war with Russia. Already, in three months, he had lost more German blood than was shed in any single year of the last war. Mr Churchill said it was impossible for anyone representing the British!
Government to discuss or argue the question of military projects which had been examined, but from the moment of the invasion Britain had cast about for every means to give the utmost effective help to her new ally. The Soviet had anything from ten to fifteen million soldiers, and arms and equipment for nearly all of them, but aid in supplying these masses and organising the operation of supply would be the task of the British. American and Russian Conference. Mr Churchill emphasised that we must be prepared to make large sacrifices in the munitions field in order to meet the needs of Russia.
JUNCTION WITH RUSSIA.
Dealing with Iran, Mr Churchill said: “The occupation of Persia enables us to join hands with the southern flank of the Russian armies and to bring into action both military and air forces.” The occupation of Persia also presented a bar to the Eastern advance of the Nazis and would keep the scourge of war thousands of miles or more away from the homes of the Indian peoples. “The Allied front,” Mr Churchill added, “now runs in an enormous crescent from Spitzbergen, in the Arctic Ocean region, to Tobruk, in the Western Desert, and our section of this front will be held by British and Erm pire armies, with their growing strength fed and equipped by seaborne supplies from Britain, the United States, India and Australia, and I am glad to say that naval power will be at hand in both the Arctic and Indian oceans to secure these seas against attack,”
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1941, Page 6
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681VAST ALLIED FRONT Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1941, Page 6
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