Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1943. NEW ZEALANDERS IN ITALY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1943. NEW ZEALANDERS IN ITALY.

FOR a great many people in this country other war news will be overshadowed, tor the time at least, by the official announcement that the Ne ; w Zealand Division in the Middle East has rejoined the Eighth Army in Italy. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Mash) certainly was on firm ground when he said, in concluding his announcement: “I know I speak for all the people of New Zealand when I say that our hearts and our thoughts are 'with these famous New Zealandeis, who comprise what is probably one of the finest divisions in the world today.” It will be hoped most earnestly, too, that the hope expressed by General Freyberg when he spoke, in his cablegram to the Government, ot the final phase 01. the wax against Germany appearing to be in sight, will prove at no distant date to have been justified.

In conjunction with some other news from Italy, the arrival in that country of the New Zealand Division is calculated, at the broadest, view, to stir the imagination. With the fact that the Eighth and Fifth armies, in spite of formidable difficulties of weather and terrain and of all that the enemy can do in fighting opposition and in demolition, are pressing forward on the road to Rome, it is reported that the Allies are steadily receiving reinforcements and that a. large number of Canadians are among the troops that have recently arrived.

Without attempting to anticipate Allied offensive plans, which obviously may develop in any one or more ot a number of directions, it seems reasonable to believe that the heavy reinforcement of the Allied armies in Italy probably implies much more than an intensified assault on the German line across the peninsula. That assault in itself is important and not lacking in promise. For instance, the so-called enemy winter line, covering Rome, is now directly and closely menaced and it is a material fact that the best communications in Italy link Rome with the Lombardy plain, at the northern extremity of the country—an area possessed of many aerodromes from which much of the Reich and of Nazi-dominated Europe now rela tively immune could be bombed as intensively as the Ruhr and other vital, centres of German war industry have been and are being bombed from Britain.

Other possibilities exist, however, and are heightened by the reinforcement of the Allied armies in Italy. It has been indicated that observers in Allied and'in enemy countries a.re of one mind in anticipating that before long swift new strokes will supplement the Allied'land advance in Italy. Now that Naples and other ports, and the airfields of Naples and Foggia probably are effectively in commission, further landings on the Italian peninsula, in rear of the present enemy defensive line; need not of necessity present as serious initial difficulties as did the landing at Salerno.

Account has to be taken also, however, of other opportunities that may arise from the Allied conquest of bases on the Italian mainland and on the great Italian islands and from their naval and air mastery in the Mediterranean. Allied naval forces, as they have demonstrated, are in supreme control of the seas on both sides of Italy and the Allied air forces are in a position to cover an invasion of the Balkans on the east and possibly of Southern France on the west. Only events will show where and in what manner the- Allies intend next to strike, but that at any time there may be great and dramatic developments in the Mediterranean war theatre is self-evident.