| Notes | News: Mr Attlee, the Deputy-Premier, reviewed the war situation when the House of Commons reassembled on Jan 19. To-day, he said, the initiative everywhere had passed into Allied hands, and we could look forward to 1943 with justifiable confidence. In any review of the war, pride of place must be given to the wonderful achievements of Russia. ... In Tripolitania, General Montgomery, after an essential period of preparation, had struck again; Rommel was once more in retreat. The Eighth Army was advancing at the rate of a mile an hour, ... he said that though the Japanese advance in the Pacific had been successfully held, we should not minimise the dangers which still existed... Referring to the war at sea, Mr Attlee said: "As in the last war, so in this, the U-boat constitutes a menace of the first magnitude and, as in the last war, there is no short and simple way to defeat it. We have to rely on the cummulative effect of a large number of counter-measures. It is worth remembering that naval warfare has never been a series of Fleet actions. ...". [Keesing's Contemporary Archives p.5566] |