Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1943. AN ANTICIPATED DESCENT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 June 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1943. AN ANTICIPATED DESCENT.

“ANTICIPATION of the long-expected Allied descent, on the Continent is mounting towards a climax as the combined staffs complete their preparations in the greatest secrecy,” stated a message from Rugby received yesterday. The development of the Allied offensive against Europe no doubt is being awaited with not less eager expectancy in New Zealand and m other parts of the overseas Empire than in Britain. At the same time, nothing perhaps is of better promise for the success of this offensive when it docs develop than the fact that the lines it is likely to qfollow remain everywhere, except to the supreme directors of Allied strategy, a matter of wide open speculation. It is taken for granted that the swift success achieved in the capture of Italy’s island outposts will be followed. up by attacks on other islands, particularly Sicily and Sardinia, and on the mainland of Italy, but the extent to which these attacks on “the soft under-belly of the Axis” are likely to be supplemented elsewhere along the Mediterranean littoral, and the importance of the total Allied operations in the Mediterranean it is likely to follow remain everywhere, except to the supreme ern Europe, remain a subject of conjecture. While these uncertainties are perhaps a little aggravating to the people of the United Nations, they must be to the enemy profoundly disconcerting and alarming. Amplifying a recent reference by Mr Churchill to the amphibious operations of great complexity'and hazard to which the Allies are committed, Lord Hankey lias described some of the principal difficulties to be overcome in establishing and supplying bridgeheads in enemyoccupied territory. There can be no doubt about the formidable character of the'tasks thus involved. On the other hand there is point in the contention of the London “Observer” that the United nations are now possessed of an initiative and of a degree of strategic mobility in the selection of objectives and in'other ways which must tend largely to nullify the enemy’s advantage of interior lines of communication. It is perhaps not unduly optimistic to believe, as the“ Observer” contends, that the strategic aim of the combined amphibious power of Britain \nd America must be to keep the Germans constantly extended to the utmost degree and to force them into battle simultaneously or successively at widely-separated points, where they in turn ’•’must be forced to weaken, isolate, or expose their armies of defence. Taking account, of actual developments in Russia and the Mediterranean and of developments both actual and prospective elsewhere in Europe, it is clear that the Germans are no longer in a position to' select at will their points of concentration. In view, too, of the great distances that separate existing and prospective battle areas and of the extent to which Axis communications have been damaged, and are likely further to be (damaged by continuing air attack, the advantages the enemy derives from fighting on interior lines evidently have been at least heavily reduced. With the Allies still holding much-in reserve, signs of the mounting strain imposed on the enemy are more than beginning to appear. In Russia, the Germans rather obviously are hanging fire in fear of what may happen elsewhere. Meantime they are opposing only local defensive action to the shattering night and day attacks that are being made by British and American forces on Ruhr war and industrial centres and other vital objectives. It cannot- be doubted that the enemy would reply to these attacks in some very much more purposeful fashion if he had the means of doing so. Even the failure at least to lengthen out the defence of the Italian island outposts offers highly significant evidence of the extent to which the air and other resources of the enemy are already strained and overtaxed.