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Show 0F MARCH By II. S. Sims, Jr. jr?rjj ' 11 ' ' ' ' ' " " irTOKV FOB I'NITF.1) V SS 1 EVIOKNT AS SSuS BUT Sl'l'KKME JVST LOOMS War is a tricky business and al- MluniKh eonm-rvatlvo "military ex- l-vts" incline to ngreo with Sir Oliver Lyttleton's declaration that t Is possible to win the war in luropo in the next year nobody overlooks the great power that remains re-mains In the German military machine. ma-chine. Optimists point out that as late us tho. summer of 1918 allied military mili-tary loaders wore preparing for three years of war but that the control powers surrendered in less than throe months. Pessimists are apt to recall the great German offensive of-fensive In the spring of 1918 which almost succeeded in cutting the Allied army In France into pieces. This War Differs From The Last . . . In the last war Germany maintained main-tained the struggle just a few months over four years. Today the Nazis are in their fourth war winter. win-ter. The situation is different in several important particulars: (1) Htiler controls practically all of Europe, exploiting the resources re-sources of conquered lands and drafting millions of laborers for work in German war industries; (2) Japan, Italy and Rumania, which fought with the .Allies in the earlier struggle, are actively assisting the Nazis, who undoubtedly undoubt-edly have plans to overcome internal in-ternal weakness that developed be- ! fore; (3) Russia, which had dropped out of the war in 1917, is fighting fight-ing offensively, the huge Red army having checked the blitzkrieg practically without the assistance of other armed forces; () Air power, the new weapon forged by the Nazis to blast their foes, has been turned against them as British and American superiority superior-ity enables the United Nations to bomb German and Italian plants and facilities at will, thus carrying carry-ing the terror and destruction of war to German soil with effectiveness effective-ness undreamed of in the prior conflict; con-flict; (5) American arms production is far ahead of our previous record, having already contributed much to the power of our Allies, and our fighting men, despite our preoccupation pre-occupation with Japan in the Far East, are already making a significant signifi-cant contribution to the defeat of the Axis in Europe and Africa. United Nations Have Advantages . . . These are the great differences that distinguish the situation in the closing month of 1942 from that of the spring of 1918. Un-mentioned, Un-mentioned, because it existed in the last war, is perhaps the greatest great-est advantage of all, the maintenance mainten-ance of long supply lines upon the high seas and the greatly increased Anglo-American naval superiority which, despite Pearl Harbor and the U-boats, is steadily tightening its deadly coils around Japanese supply lines in the Far East, just as it has blockaded Germany and run Mussolini's warships out of the Mediterranean into the doubt- ful safety of Italian harbors. . At this stage of the present war, I just as in 1918, the production of tory, the broad initiative has passed pass-ed to the United Nations, in Russia, Rus-sia, in Africa, in the air over west- implements of war, including food- stuffs, by the United Nations has, after bitter years of "too little," passed that of the Axis powers. This superiority of production will increase in coming months because Axis output is at its peak while that of the United Nations is, in fact, just getting underway. What this will mean on the battlefield is apparent when we realize that German Ger-man and Japanese gains, stupendous stupen-dous and amazing as they have been, were the inevitable consequences conse-quences of their superior preparation prepara-tion for war. Seize Initiative After Holding Foe . '. . Despite all handicaps, including long and dangerous supply lines, the United Nations in 1942 definitely definite-ly halted their enemies. The bid of the Axis alliance for victory was not enough, either on the bloody battlefields of Soviet Russia or Africa, in the air, under the sea or in the embittered waters of the South Pacific. Germany and Japan Ja-pan were definitely checked and although both nations continue to present grave threats to our vic- |