DURATION OF WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1943, Page 3

DURATION OF WAR

SUBJECT OF KEEN DEBATE IN LONDON HEAVY & DEADLY PART MAY BE BEGINNING FACTOR OF WINTER BOMBING (Bv Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON. November 15. The end of the European war and whether it will cqjne quickly or slowly is one of the most debated subjects in Britain today. Mr J. L. Garvin, writing in the “Sunday Express.” says that complete deliverance of Russia is one matter and the deliverance of the rest of Europe is another. If by mid-winter the Nazis are swept from the whole of the Soviet soil the fearful worst of the war for Russia will be over before long. For Britain and America the heaviest and deadliest part of the war is only beginning, and that is what a second front means. Mr Garvin refers to Mr Churchill’s comment that 1944 will be a year of supreme sacrifice, and adds: “There is one conceivable means by which this stark ordeal might be largely lightened and swifter victory obtained. It pivots on one big ‘if.’ “Can the war be shortened by that overwhelming weight of British and American air supremacy which will be reached during the winter? Can we shatter the German fighting power by destroying its industrial foundations to a sufficient extent? Can we do this within six months? What will be the concrete effect on Germany’s physical fighting power? That and nothing else is the essence of the question. We dare not count yet upon decisive success from mass bombing within the next six months. We cannot exclude the possibility of that epoch-making event.” “Scrutator,” the “Sunday Times” commentator, comparing November, 1943, with October, 1918, says that two differences ought to be fully allowed for in the adverse scale: First, the German Army is not yet so short of reserves as it was in 1918; and, secondly, the difference of season and the fact that the good campaigning months in western Europe are May to September inclusive, when the state of the ground constitutes no major obstacle to the conduct of an offensive. “Scrutator” refers to the ice front in Russia and the air front for bombers from the United Kingdom, and expresses the opinion: “The former should suffice to see the war carried clean off the soil’of Russia. If at the same time we can fully utilise the facilities which the winter gives for bombing Berlin and eastern Germany the psychological strain may reach breaking point. Given good weather, the destruction of 74 pei - cent of Berlin (the percentage of destruction of Hamburg) is not beyond possibility this winter. Were it achieved, few things could accomplish more to destroy the German resistance.”