Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1943. PROGRESS TOWARDS THE KILL.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1943. PROGRESS TOWARDS THE KILL.

American writer, Mr Etanson Baldwin, has said that in war, as in the boxing ring, it is a sound principle to leap for the kill when the opponent is groggy and that therefore considerable Allied risks are fully justified by Germany’s present situation. No doubt Mr Baldwin is right, but it has to be recognised that in a world war a good deal of leaping to the kill may be needed to bring the conflict decisively to a conclusion.

The success of the Russians in their superbly planned and executed winter offensive is exceeding all expectations. As matters stand there are fair prospects that the whole of. the elaborately prepared and equipped Axis defensive front extending’ over hundreds of miles north from the Caucasus may presently be smashed and the disaster suffered by the Germans at Stalingrad multiplied several times over. The enemy is menaced heavily, also, in areas still further north.

With all this entered on the credit side, however, two of the victorious Soviet commanders, Generals Chuikov and Rodimstev, were reported yesterday as stating that though the turning point of the war had been reached the German armies were still capable of resuming the offensive in the spring and General Chuikov added that: “Much of course depends on a second front.”

The splendid achievement of the Eighth Army and all that has been and is being done by Allied land, air and sea forces in the North African theatre opens up good prospects of enormous additional pressure being imposed on the enemy, at no distant date, in Southern Europe and perhaps in Western Europe as well. It is to be noted, however, that in an admirably dispassionate survey of the situation reported yesterday, General Alexander said that the task of driving the Axis forces right out of the African continent was not going to be easy, though he spoke with confidence of this being accomplished, with serious consequences to the enemy in Europe.

There is now every promise of continued victorious progress by the Allied armies, but no early end to the struggle is to be expected while the Axis gangsters retain their present measure of control over their home and occupied territories. All moderately intelligent and well-informed individuals in Germany and in Italy no doubt know that the war is lost and that they have nothing whatever to gain from continuing to do the bidding of their taskmasters. Hitler, Mussolini and their felloW-eriminals, however, will carry on the war as long as they are able because they are in the position of cornered rats and know that for them there will be no question of pardon or escape on the day of Allied victory.

These gangsters, with their vile crew of Gestapo terrorists and atrocity-mongers, have excellent reasons for fighting to a finish. For them defeat must mean pitiless retribution, at the hands either of the Allies or their own countrymen. A stage presumably will be reached, however, at which the end of the war will be hastened by the fact that no. such dire doom as; this rests upon the general masses of the people in. enemy countries. What Allied victory means to the people of an enemy country lias been and is being demonstrated at present in Tripoli. There a number of Fascist leaders have been interned and some of them possibly may be open to indictment as war criminals. To the civilian population of the city, however, the Allied occupation has brought relief and security. These people are being encouraged and assisted to re-establish their economic life.

To the people of /enemy countries generally, with the exception of those individually guilty of, or responsible for, crimes and atrocities, Allied victory offers relief from the horrors of War. On the other hand, continuation of the war has become, so far as these people tire concerned, a matter merely of dyingin droves, as the Sixth Army did at Stalingrad, in order that the inevitable and richly-merited punishment of the Axis gangsters may be delayed.