PRESSURE THAT WILL BREAK THE NAZIS
Williams, Major Al
Pressure That Will Break The Nazis By MAJOR AL WILLIAMS WITH 1943 nearing its end, some observations on tactics of modern warfare are appropriate. Thus far no hostile forces have breached the...
...Naturally the Allied airmen, keenly aware of this transportation problem, have been persistently hammering away at the German railroads...
...But I do maintain that the day and night bombardment of Naziland will be the pressure that will finally break the backbone of the Germans in this war, as the sea blockade broke them in the last war...
...And, remember, sleep is equally important as food for physical fitness and well being...
...Pressure Of Bombardments War workers in the Ruhr can no longer get their all-essential rest and eight hours sleep...
...Nevertheless, we are told—and rightly—that affairs within Germany are bad...
...And the Germans apparently have sufficient food and supplies...
...But unlike the last war, where blockade was steadily and inexorably starving the German war effort while great Allied armies pounded and hacked at its heart, we now find the combat fronts far from Nazi boundaries...
...What has upset the carefully regimented and planned Nazi war strength ? Day and night hammering from the air...
...Against this safety precaution must be debited the extraordinary transportation burden of carrying the products, of each factory to some common center for assembly...
...This air pressure on the German rail transportation system will be a vital factor in the eventual breakdown...
...Just imagine what the general rail situation must be in Germany...
...Thus far no hostile forces have breached the final Nazi eastern line within hundreds of miles of Germany proper...
...And now, as the air raid network is expanded, the same can be said for almost all' important German cities...
...Conditions Within Germany There's no way of estimating just what the constant air threat represents in the loss of man hours of labor to German war production...
...By no means do I mean to infer that air bombardment alone will win this war and force surrender of the Nazi outfit...
...These are the things the Allied air arms are doing to the German war effort and German morale...
...In other wars, with an enemy nation surrounded and cut off from sea traffic, it would have been possible to starve but the belligerents by sea and land blockade...
...Huge armies are not pounding Germany from a Western front...
...There's not a spot within Germany that cannot be and is not reached and stabbed by Allied bombers—night and day...
...Many one-time important Nazi cities are nothing but shells, unfit for normal habitation...
...It is true that the Nazis, anticipating bomb damage, scattered their production units...
...Just assume for a moment what would happen to the grand totals of planes and engines produced by Pratt and Whitney, Grumman, Republic, and Wright Aeronautical if these factories were being systematically bombed day and night...
...There is a front in Italy, but that's not near enough to Germany to make its pressure felt within that nation...
...Deficiency in food or sleep has its direct reflection in depreciated morale...
...Then, too, consider the constant threat of air bombardment and its effect upon the dislocation of factory routine...
...Occasionally we hear complaints about the shortage of rail passenger accommodations in this country, with our roadbeds and rolling stock untouched by explosives...
...Probably none of them would be attaining better than one-half their current production...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 52
