Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1943. CRITICISM AND ACHIEVEMENT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1943. CRITICISM AND ACHIEVEMENT.

Ji] VEX before I lie Battle of Salerno had reached its present promising stage, criticism of its planning and conduct by the Allied High Command in the Mediterranean appeared to rest on an extremely uncertain foundation and to embody such inconsistencies that one part to a great extent cancelled anothei. A Reuter correspondent in Switzerland, for example, quoted “competent observers” who regarded the battle as the Allies first offensive error —one that had involved an unnecessaiy loss of thousands of lives and waste of precious time. The error (the correspondent added) is believed to lie in the attempt to attack a point beyond the range of the superior (Allied) air force, while leaving the enemy with a semi-circle of hills alter he had time to dispose his mobile forces. Rather inconsistently, as it would appear, the observers quoted by the correspondent also criticised the Allies for failing to take bold action by landing a few thousand troops in northern Italy —a policy which, it is claimed, “would have entirely prevented the German conte-back.” The Red Army newspaper Red Star” went still further on this line in criticising the failure of the Allies to occupy Genoa, simultaneously with the landings near Naples and stating that “the failure to seize Genoa will enable the German High Command more easily to carry out its defence plan for Italy.” If, however, the Allies took undue risks in landing south of Naples beyond the range of fully effective air cover, they evidently would have taken much more serious risks of this kind in attempting to occupy Genoa, or perhaps in any landings in northern Italy. Whether undue risks were taken in the landings in the Gulf of Salerno must be determined in light of much fuller information than is yet available. It is. already clear, however, that the Battle of Salerno is developing very much more favourably than appears to have been thought possible by the authors of recent hasty and possibly ill-considered criticism. - That much was asked of the troops landed, and that they Suffered heavy losses, is admitted. It also appears, however, that this bold and inevitably costly stroke was the master move in operations which have given the Allies effective command of a great part of southern Italy and are likely to open the way to a further considerable extension of the area of occupation. The rapid northward advance of the Eighth Army, and General Montgomery’s confident but temperate statement on the outlook, possibly deserve more attention than some of the criticisms which have been referred to.

It has Io be considered that whatever happens in the immediate future in northern Italy—-and that may depend greatly on what the Italians are able to do in hampering and wrecking the German military effort —the Allies in any case have already done a great deal to extend and strengthen their springboard for an invasion of the Balkans. This may fit in well with operations by Allied forces in the Eastern Mediterranean and with the latest achievements of the Russians on their southern front, of which not the least notable in its immediate and possible effects is the storming of the Black Sea port and base of Novorossisk.