Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1943. AN INCOMPLETE DISCLOSURE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1943. AN INCOMPLETE DISCLOSURE.

SYMPATHY may be felt by some people in this country with the criticism which has been directed by British newspapers against the Allied campaigns in Italy and the Dodecanese Islands. There can, of course, be nothing else, than unstinted admiration of the gallantry with which the Fifth and Eighth armies are assaulting and penetrating the German defence hues across Italy and the self-sacrificing devotion with which small British garrisons have fought and are fighting in islands of the Dodecanese group. People who have no desire to pose as amateur and armchair strategists may be pardoned for wondering, however, whether it is really necessary that the Allies should rely as much as they are relying on frontal attacks on the German defences in Italy, and on what grounds it has been deemed right and advisable to expose a British and. Italian garrison on the island of Leros, beyond the range of Allied fighter cover, to unrestricted dive-bombing by the Germans.

At the same time, there may be an element of rashness in the observation attributed to Captain Liddell Hart, the military correspondent of the London “Daily Mail” that: In Italy the advance has been disappointing and the Allies seem to be in danger of losing the initiative.

Arduous and costly as their campaign in Italy has been and is, the Allies have achieved already a substantial measure of success •and are extending this success steadily, if gradually. Meily, Sardinia and Corsica and about a third of the Italian peninsula are in their hands. They have opened a promising invasion approach. to the Balkans and perhaps also to Southern Prance. They are engaging and have taken a considerable toll of powerful German forces, and by an effective use of air power against vital points in the Alpine railways and many other targets they are doing a good deal to make the total position of the eneinjin Italy insecure and hazardous.

Piightly or wrongly, however, it is felt very generally that the Allies are faced by'opportunities and possessed of. resources which should enable them to take more extended action in the Mediterranean war theatre. It may be that the criticisms now being raised in Britain make insufficient allowance for the time needed to .prepare for action on a more extended scale. It certainly seems improbable that the Allies will content themselves much longer with frontal attacks on the Germans in Apennine strongholds and along Italian river lines and more or less forlorn hope ventures like the defence of Leros.

Something more than a hint of better things in store is given in the severely damaging attack by American medium bombers from Italy on Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, which was reported yesterday. The attack on the main railway depot and its attendant establishments at Sofia may be summed up as a very good beginning on the task of wrecking the transport system meantime available to the Germans in the Balkans. Excellent results, both political and military, should be obtained if this damaging onslaught is followed up in an enterprising way.

Besides being troubled by an increasing disposition on the part of their satellites to seek the easiest and quickest way of escape they can find from the defeat and disaster they see impending,' the Germans are faced by serious technical difficulties, especially where transport is concerned, in their plans lor the defence of the Balkans. The Reich Minister of Transport, Julius Dorpmuller, was reported not long ago to be touring the Balkans, with a technical staff, intent on organising rapid communications between Breslau and Sofia, and Bucharest and Sofia.

As an addition to what is already being done by Yugoslav and Greek guerillas, methodical Allied air attacks on Balkan transport routes may very well open the way to an Allied invasion of the peninsula —an invasion which Turkey conceivably may facilitate. Should events take this course there should be before long a considerable brightening of the war outlook in the Mediterranean theatre.