USE OF SHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1942, Page 3

USE OF SHIPS

DISCUSSED BY LEADERS IN WASHINGTON MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT. ALLIED EXPERTS PRESENT. LONDON, June 23. President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill today had a conference which was described by the President’s Secretary, Mr Stephen Early, as one of the most important so far. The subject was shipbuilding and the use of ships. Shipping experts of the United States and Britain were present. SECOND FRONT REPORTS. Questioned regarding reports that Lieutenant-General A. G. L. McNaughton, commander of the Canadian Corps in Britain, is favoured as the commander of the second front, President Roosevelt’s secretary, Mr Stephen Early, characterised them as highly speculative. The “Montreal Gazette’s” Washington correspondent said that Lieuten-ant-General McNaughton was heavily favoured to assume supreme command of the United Nations forces charged with opening a second front in Europe, probably during 1942. The correspondent cited a military source as saying: “Unquestionably the British War Office favours General McNaughton over all others.” Mr Noel Baker, M.P., the prominent Labour Party official, said in London today that no doubt Mr Churchill and President Roosevelt discussing how we could increase our ships and how we could improve our plan for pooling ships so that the armed forces could be got to the front to smash the enemy s resistance. Both countries could make armaments, but unless there were ships to carry them they Yvould pile up on the shores. ALLIED AIMS STATED BY MR HOPKINS. IMPORTANCE OF HELPING RUSSIA. NEW YORK, June 22. Speaking at a celebration of the first anniversary of Russia’s entry into the war, the Lease-Lend Director, Mr Harry Hopkins, said that President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill were plotting the offensive strategy for the opening of a second or even third and fourth fronts. He added, “The Russian, front is the most important strategic front in the world. Defeat of the Russian Army would be a major disaster. Make no mistake, Russia and the Red Army are in danger just as they have been for the last year. “The Japanese armies are threatening China from all sides,” Mr Hopkins continued, “but, step by step, no matter how long it takes, the United Nations will strike their war to the very gates of Japan. The Allies will destroy the last vestiges of the military dictatorship in Japan and every Japanese soldier will be swept out of China, Manchuria and Korea. “The main Japanese fleet, though damaged in the Coral Sea and Midway battles, is still intact, but the American Fleet will finally track the Japanese Navy into its lair and send it to the bottom. “Soon our airmen will join the British in England, and Germany will then know that American might can be brought to bear fiercely on Germany itself. The German cities one by one will be destroyed. Italy, led by the fat, almost retired exhibitionist Mussolini, will collapse like an inflated mushroom under the first stream of our violent attack.” Mr Hopkins added that the United States army of 3,000,000 men was not being trained to “play tiddleywinks.”