| 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] |