TOULON & TUNIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 November 1942, Page 3

TOULON & TUNIS

NOW IN THE LIMELIGHT GREAT CHANGE IN STRATEGIC SITUATION. NAVAL AND AIR FACTORS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.10 a.m.) LONDON. November 12. Toulon and Tunis arc at present in the limelight of the Mediterranean war zone. Toulon is the French fleet’s base and the fleet is very important. If it joins the Allied naval forces it will immediately make the United Nations’' sea power paramount, but if it were Hitler-controlled it would necessitate a concentration of Allied ships, straining the Allied naval resources. The French fleet at Toulon is reported to include the modern battleships Strasbourg and Dunkerque (each of 26,000 tons), the old battleship Provence (22.000 tons), the heavy cruisers Algerie, Colbert, Foch and Dupleix, each of 10,000 tons, four light cruisers, 25 destroyers and 26 submarines; also the 10,000-ton seaplane-carrier Commandant Eate.

All these vessels have been laid up for a long time. It is speculated that if Hitler acquired the French fleet he might bring the Nazi fleet from Norway and create a serious diversion in northern waters. Tunis is in the limelight because, in addition to its value on other grounds, its occupation will be strategically important in the air battle which is expected over the narrows of the Sicilian Channel. The inner boundaries of this air battle probably will be Tunisia. Malta, Sicily and Sardinia, with the pick of the British, American, German and Italian air forces engaged. One view is that the Germans, by landing airborne troops in Tunis, have decided to take a gamble which, if the Luftwaffe loses, may cripple their forces, but they can muster extremely powerful air forces which probably arc now moving into position. With a big fleet reported at Gibraltar, Mr Churchill’s forecast of great events within the next few days is full of significance. France’s attitude still remains uncertain. Her liberation plainly is at stake in the Mediterranean clash. Hitler has brought France back into the war, but it is still uncertain for whom she will fight. Meanwhile, as “The Times” points out, the Allied Mediterranean move has completely disrupted German strategy, for eyes are now turned, not to Cairo and the Caspian, but to Corsica and the security of Sardinia. This is now the anxious issue—not the overcoming of Stalingrad.