8/2/2019 War Review 1941

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ByWR PLIEWMAN(Thursday. Jnly 24 , 1941)

An important sea and si r battleappears to have been fought int he ce nt ra l Mediterranean area yes-terday between the Br iti s h andAxis forces . The British govern-ment, having urgent plans of primeimpo ^~ in northern Africa andthe ' ;ast, and hoping thataaly .~, : 'demoralized, ventured tosend , z `large convoy of war ma-terial through the inland sea in de-2iance of enemy bombing planes,submarines and destroyers . Mostwar supplies 2 or the eastern Medi-terranean from Britain go aroundthe Cape of Good Hope on a 10 -week route . The British could nothope to send a convoy secretlythrough th e Mediterranean, asenemy agents in Spain and Moroccokeep tab on every British move-ment through th e Straits of Gibral-

ta r . Axis air forces, consistingmainly of torpedo planes, attackedth e convoy . Rome, as us ual, givesth e first report of th e batt le to theworld, which probably i s as fa rfrom th e truth as i t s reports ofprevious engagements have been .I t clams that two large B ri t i sh v e s-sels carrying supplies, one of theman ammunition ship, were sunk, aswell as a destroyer, and that sevenBritish planes were shot down and

a B r i ti s h b a tt l es h ip , three cruisers,a destroyer and s e ve r al o th er cargoships damaged. The Italian capitalboasts that the Italians l o s t onlythree p la ne s , t ha t a l l of their war-ships returned to port safely with4light damage, and that only oneother Italian ship was sunk .As the convoy had to s a i l at least1,000 miles after th e battle before Itreached i t s destination, t he Br it is hhad reason fo r not hurrying to di s-close details of the battle and thestate of their supply ships and es -corting warships Later today, ortomorrow, the British account ofthe battle may be to hand. I t willbe surprising i t it does not revealheavier Italian losses . I f th e bulkof the convoy go t through with th e .

TheWarReviewedloss of two or three ships, the haz-ardous venture may have justifiedi t s e l f .The British report a sea and ai r

battle near Pantellaria, in which anItalian convoy was attacked, threesupply ships sunk and a destroyerdamaged .Japaa Moves t3outhward But . . .Japanese warships and troopships

appeared at Camranh Bay in FrenchIndo-China as Japan prepared totake over new s ea and ai r bases inthat French colony . Vichy andTokyo profess to b el ie ve t ha t theBritish and Free French forces,with the aid pos si bly of Chinesetroops were about t o take po s s e s -s i o n of French Indo-China. Vichysuggests that she i s allowing Japanto take French Indo-China intoprotective custody because of whatthe British did in Syria . The Brit-is h moved to forestall th e Germans

in Syria and tq~i`ht _i1~Y~ hadequally good reason to forestall theJapanese in French Indo-China .The writer believes that Japan i spreparing to make much more im-portant moves than the o b t a i n i n gof bases in French Indo-China Hermove there may be largely of ad ef en s iv e c ha r ac te r so as to be inreadiness to make a grab fo r S i b e r i ashould the Russian armies inEurope collapse or the Germans

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j , rj K E Y fNA S (SCALE INS~aa0,,.reach Moscow Undoubtedly Japanhopes her southern move wi ll pr e-vent the Anglo-Saxon powers fromconcentrating their efforts againstGermany . I t i s expected to be ofhigh nuisance value to th e Axis .The vvw. ~ that Japan i s deliberatelychall . : : vtg $ritain and the US tobattle i s questionable but i t s conse-quences may be more serious toJapan than she expected them tobe .Vichy has consented, i n p r in ci p le ,to the Japanese occupation of addi-

tional bases in southern Indo-China but the agreement has notbeen worked out in detail . Eventhose who wish to be fair to Vichywill have to admit that it seems

contemptible that the authoritiesthere shnaW make i t harder fo rBritain to se t France at liberty .I t may depend upon how sweepingJapanese control of the colonypromises t o be whether the Anglo-Saxon powers will make anycounter-move of a military natureor freeze Japanese credits or bana l l exports of war material or food-stuffs to China . They could severdiplomatic relations and stop a l 1 l 'trade with Japan . The cut ti ng o ffof a l l war material might driveJapan into an attack on the DutchEast Indies . The cutting of f of a l ltrade relations probably would giverise to war - between Japan andBritain and the U.S .An understanding was reached

between th e U.S . , Britain and theDutch East Indies 2or commonaction in the event of certain de-velopments . Exactly what thosedevelopments were has not beendisclosed . Probably they weredirect attacks on t he t er ri to ry orshipping of one another. The occu-pation of French Indo-China byJapanese forces may not have beenincluded although such a movewould be an indirect threat i f nota direct threat to a l l three. Japancan say that she i s improving herm i li t a ry p o si t i on in that quarter soas to cuY o f f - war supplies for Chinaand force Chiang Kai-shek to makepeace . The Anglo-Saxon powers arebacking China against Japaneseaggression and have reason to nega-tive such a move. There shouldbe no more appeasement in theFar East . China and her friendsare in a good position t o deal withany fresh acts o1 Japanese aggres-5ion . Russians Baffle GermansThe military situation on the

Russian front 'appears to be betterthan i t was a week or ten days ago,For the time being the Russiansappear to have smothered the Ger-man efforts to widen the Smolenskwedge and break th e Russian armiesi n t o two separated and isolatedgroups which could be destroyed atleisure . Berlin semi-officially claimstoday that they have had a consid-erable success on the north side ofthe wedge, that they captured some13,000 Russians at that point . Theremay be l i t t l e occasion fo r concernon that score . On the south sideof the wedge the Russians were somenacing that th e German forceshad to give up their attempts to~aatsse eaatwtd and to contetrtthemselves with digging in and try-ing to hold the ground at the pointof the wedgeGerman checks e a s t o2 Smolensk

appear t o have been costly . In theOrsha sector, fa r to th e west andslightly south of Smolensk, Germanforces were surrounded and manyp r i s o n e r s taken. At Rudnya, west ofSmolensk the Russians improvedtheir position . Russian bombersharassed German troop4 in thisregion, On t he B al ti c front the Ger-mans were held, thanks to heavyRussian artillery, Germane wereforced to retr eat near Pskov,Figures on th e long L-column mapsignify ( 1 ) Germans and Finns ad-vance close to Petrozavodsk, threat-ening to isolate Murtnansk andArchangel . ( 2 ) Russians drive Ger-mans back in th e Baltic sector . (3 )Germane in the wedge at Smolenskin difficulties . ( 4 ) and ( 5 ) Littlechange in the southern sectors .

Thlnga Lootin; BetterThe outcome of the battle on theeastern front depends upon th eextent to which the opposing armies

have throws in their availablereserves . Nearly one-half of th eGerman reserves have been drawninto the conflict because one-thirdof the divisions with which theGermans began th e battle have beenso badly mauled they had to bewithdrawn fo r r e pa i r s and re-cuperation . Probably 40 Germandivisions have been forced to retirefo r reorganization . An even largernumber of Russian divisions mayhave been reduced until they hadt i t t l e fighting value. Berlin claimsthat th e remnants o1 18 Russiandivisions fought on together in -effectively . This it gives as evidencethat the last Russian reserves havebeen thrown into the fray .Russia i s a country of vastdistances with many millions oftrained men General mobilizationordinarily takes several weeks . Atleast seven crack divisions are

~ checking of the Germans and Finnsto nearly every important sector i sattributed by th e Germans to thearrival of large Russian reinforce-ments . An Italian newspaper saysthe German advance has beenslowed down by stiff Russian re -sistance . A neutral military expertwho has lust reached Sweden from,Rus si a s ays that 10 days ago theRussians had only 1 00 di vi s io ns atthe front and that 200 otherdivisions had not been engaged .I f that i s true the German armieswill be defeated . Fifty Russiandivisions are reported to remain inSiberia, and should be a match fo rany Japanese force that could beassembled without dropping activewarfare against the Chinese . AChinese offensive may developwithin a month . Although thereports about Russian reserves maygive too favorable a picture . i t doesseem t o be true that the Russianshave put scores of thousands offresh troops i n t o the area betweenMoscow and Smolensk and that th epossibility of holding the enemy onevery vital front i s i n c r e a s i n g .Germany used onlq 10 0 planes inth e third night r a id on Moscow.

Three Times In a S,owFor th e third night in a rowthe Br it is h a ir force have bombed

Frankfurt and Mannheim . Ostendand 7x Havre were attacked . Earlytoday the Boulogne and Calais areaswere raided . German ai r for cesappeared in greater . strength yes-terday and the British lost I S planesto the enemy's 16. Berlin claimsthat four times as many Britishplanes were destroyed . Widely scat-tered raids, not very heavy, weremade on British centres last night .An Italian rumor suggests US . sub-marines are moving in the Mediter-ranean. Anthony Eden ha : warnedSpain to be more friendly .

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