RUSSIA’S NEEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1941, Page 6

RUSSIA’S NEEDS

i EQUIPMENT FOR ARMIES t BIG TASK IgOR BRITISH ; FACTORIES. ’ SETTING DATE FOR VICTORY. ; LONDON, September 25. 5 Lord Beaverbrook has told the workers that from now onwards Brit tish war factories must supply the ; armies of Russia as well as those of 5 Great Britain. All over the Empire ) factory wheels must turn in double t time to meet the tremendous task. 1 Britain’s industrial workers are the f shock troops of the Imperial war effort. r Russia’s needs are urgent. Factories 1 and plants have had to be evacuated ih the gigantic struggle and until they can be re-started on new sites British workers must make good their working capacity. Tanks and lorries, guns ' and raw materials are needed to fill . the gap in Russian industries and tc ’ enable millions of Russian trained men to hold the enemy at bay. 1 ‘'We require your urgent help in order to reinforce- our own efforts. Your tanks 'will not.be wasted. They ’ will go.out to 'the battle at once. We * know how to use them against our , common enemy.” (M. Maisky, Septem- ’ ber 23.) [ FILLING THE GAPS. War materials are reaching Russia from. Great Britain and U.S.A. Aero- : planes are the first necessity; a wing of the R.A.F. with all its appropriate personnel, material and ground staffs is even now in action on the East Front; hundreds of British fighter air--1 craft are on the way. Civil and military supplies, including rubber, tin, wool, lead, jute and shellac to the tune of £15,000,000 sterling are being sent from Britain. ’ From the United States go aero- ' planes, oil, aviation spirit and machine tools. Vital war material that Great ' Britain had counted on receiving under the Lease-Lend Act is being div- ’ erted to meet the more pressing needs of our ally. TANKS, AND MORE TANKS. Britain’s industrial workers must go. to it hammer and tongs to meet our own requirements in the Middle East. General Auchinleck’s great army of 750,000 must be fully equipped to beat the enemy. The defences of Cyprus only recently have been put in good order and at home the efficiency .of our growing forces must not suffer from lack of war material. Now is the time. The war in the East is Britain’s war. On the great common battlegrount which stretches from Murmansk to the Black Sea the German army can be defeated. A successful stand there would bring the day of victory within our sight. Disaster provide Germany with vast new resources. The enemy is fully alive to the situation. “The German armed forces in the East are winning for themselves the prerequisites necessary for the final contest with Germany’s arch enemy, Great Britain.” (Transocean news cable, ■. August 31, 1941.) But so is the British Empire. “The Soviet Union needs all the material aid which the Empire and the United States can afford: Australia will meet fully any possible requirements allocated here.” (Mr Fadden, September 18, 1941. The battle of productions is on between the free workers of the Allies and the forced labour of unwilling Europe.