South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 09 May 1942
Turning Tide
The Balance Sheet of war does not yet show many positive credits on the side of the United Nations. There have been some very definite set-backs for the enemy, of which perhaps the chief is his continued embroilment with Russia, but our own time is not yet, though there are signs and portents not unfavourable to our cause.
One of these was Hitler’s recent speech, in which he specifically referred to the home front in somewhat sinister and minatory terms. But we shall be foolish if we take any comfort from what we imagine to be the internal condition of Germany. Obviously it must be difficult .We have only to cast our memories back to our own ordeal of night bombing to imagine what things are like in places where the R.A.F. is now playing nightly havoc.
These attacks, we are told, are heavier than those which the Luftwaffe inflicted on our cities and there are many indications that this is so. For the Germans there is worse to come, but we know that aerial attack must be persistent in weight and severity over a long period before it begins to tell.
In the meantime we are on the point of being ousted from Burma by the Japanese, who are already battering against the back door of China. At the same time there are no signs of weakening from the Japanese forces established on the doorstep of Australia, even though they have been compelled to mark tune in the face of dauntless air attack directed by General MacArthur and made possible by steady reinforcements of American aircraft. The fall of Corregidor marks the end of organised resistance in the Phillipines, and a review of the position suggests that we are on the threshold of a new phase of the war.
Madagascar marks a step in the United Nations’ turnover from defence to attack. The neutralisation of the island is really an offensive-defensive action, as it is necessary to deny the Japanese a base which would have compromised very gravely our eastern supply line and one of the life-lines which have helped to stiffen Russian resistance. At the same time liquidation of the uncertainty about, Madagascar is a positive step towards the counter attack against Japan which must come sooner o; later. We can ignore the hypocritical outcries of Vichy against a logical step in our strategy which it was obvious would have to be undertaken with the minimum of delay. Madagascar would have gone the way of French Indo China as soon as the Japanese fleet felt able to reach out towards it.
The fight for India which is now on will be waged with so much more confidence in the knowledge that potential Vichy treachery over this island base in the rear has been scotched. The full fury of the offensives which will characterise this year are as yet hidden from us. They may be even now developing, and must in any event be imminent. A many-sided attack on the Caucasus is likely, and India and Australia are facing peril as great as Britain’s after Dunkirk. Egypt, too, lies in the shadow, and our own island fortress is not free of the menace of invasion.
But as we prepare to parry the blows of an adversary no longer as fresh as he was we are now able and ready to probe his weak points in reply. We are perfecting our own counter strokes and these will fall with increasing weight as we discern our opportunities. Already we are hitting hack to some purpose in the air. Just how soon and how hard our main riposte will be is the chief anxiety of the Axis powers. They have learned to their cost that the Lion has wings; they have yet to be reminded that the Lion has claws too.