VICTORY IN SIGHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1943, Page 5

VICTORY IN SIGHT

BUT MAY BE SPEEDED BY INTENSIFIED INDUSTRIAL EFFORT. WITH GREAT SAVING IN LIVES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.5 a.m.) RUGBY, September 26. Sir Stafford Cripps (Minister of Aircraft Production), speaking in Newcastle, declared that victory now seemed certain and added: “It is only the time and the cost.in human life that are still, in doubt. How long that time will be and how great the casualties arc must now depend largely upon the efforts .of those on the industrial front in Britain and America. A sustained and increasing effort may bring us earlier victory, with all that it means in the saving of human lives."’ Pointing to the enormous expansion of aircraft production and of the production of all those multifarious devices which assist the fighter and bomber, Sir S. Cripps said: “If the figure for the first six months of 1940 for the structure weight of aircraft produced is taken at 100, then the corresponding figures for 1941, 1942 and 1943 —in each case the first six months —are 261, 244. 364. This shows how great is our production now compared with those six months of 1940 when we were making the planes which fought the Battle of Britain, but this is not in itself enough. We still need more and more aircraft to make good the heavy losses in offensive fighting today and to prepare 'for that even greater offensive which must come before the end is reached?'