Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JULY 12, 1943. AN INVASION BEGUN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JULY 12, 1943. AN INVASION BEGUN.

'pIIAT the Allies have invaded Sicily in strength and are engaged there in operations reported at time of writing to be going well does not of necessity imply that their main blow against the Axis this summer is to be struck in the Mediterranean. In the attack on Fortress Europe there is a wide choice of objectives. General Eisenhower has said that the landing in Sicily will be Followed by others. The probable location of further landings—anywhere round the western and southern coasts of .Europe, from Norway to Greece —cannot, but be a matter of anxious concern to the enemy Powers.

Whatever the total Allied plan of attack may be in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, however, the landing in Sicily in itself holds important possibilities. As opening the way to an extended invasion of Italy, it imposes on the enemy a task of defence in circumstances by no means wholly advantageous from his point of view. In the whole of the territory now immediately threatened —not only Sicily, but Sardinia and the southern mainland provinces—the main communications and the principal areas of development and population are in the coastal zones and in a few great valleys. Both in the islands and in the southern mainland the inland territories are mountainous and poorly roaded. Possession of the coastal roads and railways and of aerodromes mostly located near the coasts is vital.

A great deal thus depends on the factor of air power, in which the Allies appear to be maintaining a decisive superiority. Naval forces also have a very important part to play, and there is every indication that here, as in other particulars, the Allies are well prepared. Some early reports spoke of the Italian fleet being in action, but it is stated also that the Allied landings in Sicily, along some hundred miles of coast, were effected, without the loss of a single ship. There is little enough doubt of the ability of the Allies to deal effectively with any naval action on which the Italians may venture. It is fairly certain that the Italians, if they were free to make their own decision, would lose no time in accepting the Allied terms of unconditional surrender. Mussolini and his accomplices are doing what they can to arouse the Italian forces to a spirited defence of their home territory, but in must be a very dull and unintelligent Italian—soldier or civilian —who is not by this time fully alive to the fact that the terms on which Italy is associated with Germany are those of abject slavery. A great deal must depend on the extent to which Germany is prepared to draw upon her own resources of men and material in keeping Italy in subjection and opposing an Allied invasion. The effort entailed certainly will not be welcomed by the Germans, particularly in view of the necessity they are under of providing for and preparing to meet Allied attacks at any one of a great number of points around the European coasts, but apparently it is being made. One message states, for instance, that German reinforcements have arrived in Sicily. It is, of course, purely for their own sake that the Germans are taking action. They are fully alive to the extent to which the Allied air offensive against Axis centres of war production will be intensified when it can be directed from bases in Italy as well as from the west. There are many important centres of enemy war industry which are much more conveniently accessible from bases in Italy than from any at present available to Allied bombers. A NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT. figures stand, and with some amounts yet to come in, the Third Liberty Loan has been oversubscribed by upwards of £4,000,000. This has rightly been hailed by the Minister of Finance (Mr Nash) as an outstanding national achievement —- one on which the Dominion has been congratulated by the British Chancellor .of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood). The investment of over £39,000,000 in a single loan by a population of some 1,600,000 certainly is remarkable, and it is best of all that the number of people who subscribed to the loan, including those who did so by way of national savings accounts, reached the splendid lota! of 419,763. In this respect and others, the raising of the Third Liberty Loan has made financial history in New Zealand and has established precedents which may well be accepted as a guide to action when the war is over and peace has been restored. The money any country needs legitimately for capital expenditure cannot be obtained better than from the savings of the largest possible proportion of its own population. With loan investment extended in this way it might be easier than it has been at times in the past to ensure that borrowed money shall be spent only on undertakings that will bear examination. In any case, the raising and over-sub-scription of the Third Liberty Loan is an achievement highly creditable both to the organising committees who did their work so capably and to the people of the Dominion who responded so well to a genuinely national appeal.