LIVES & TIME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1943, Page 3

LIVES & TIME

SAID TO HAVE BEEN WASTED AT SALERNO “FIRST OFFENSIVE ERROR OF WAR.” FAILURE TO STRIKE BOLDLY IN NORTH. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, September 16. Reuter’s correspondent at Lugano, Switzerland, says competent observers regard the battle of Salerno as the Allies’ first offensive error of the war, because of an unnecessary loss of thousands of lives and waste of precious time. The .error is believed to lie in the attempt to attack a point beyond' the range of'the superior air force while leaving the enemy with a semi-circle of hills after he had time to dispose his mobile forces. Treachery greatly facilitated the infiltration by the Germans into the north of Italy, enabling handfuls of youngsters to take strategically-im-portant points without firing a shot. It was a gigantic bluff, and it came off chiefly because the Allies moved too slowly and did not risk a bold stroke which would have roused the entire Italian nation from its spirit of demoralised bewilderment. A few thousand troops landed at the right time at the right spots from the sea and from the air could have entirely prevented the German come-back. “Now the Allies are fighting German forces which are as favourably placed as if they had chosen the terrain themselves. The observers believe the Battle of Italy will cost the lives of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers,” the correspondent says.