Who Can Last Longer?

Germany tightened up. The news in Berlin was bad. The Axis was losing North Africa. Italy, always uncertain, was growing more uncertain as the threat of invasion increased. Goering's Luftwaffe had failed to twist the neck of the thunderbird that nested in England and clawed at Kiel, Antwerp, Cologne, Paris, Essen, Berlin. Some 90,000 people had been, removed from industrial Essen's shattered, scattered homes. War labor was at a premium; war widows were ordered into the factories.

But Germany was not yet beaten.

Bombing had not knocked her out. Most of the invasion talk so far emanated from Propaganda Minister Goebbels himself.

For this talk, the High Command had its own reasons. It was at least doubletalk.

Italy needed bolstering. Occupied countries had to be warned that Germany was on the alert for any defections.

The Festung Europa was a continent behind a flexible system of interrelated land, air and sea defenses. Berlin, cocking an ear, could hear the enemy admitting that the system was formidable. Admiral Sir William James warned his country men in London: "We saw at Dieppe, which was a most carefully planned enter prise, how a few well-situated guns on shore can wreck an amphibious opera tion." Clearly, the Allied strategists who knew the score were not so foolish as to expect a quick or easy conquest of German Europe.

Transcending all else was the hard and hopeful fact -- for Germans -- that Germany was still winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Churchill and Roosevelt both had indicated that the Allies could not hope to launch a major offensive before that margin was beaten in, and it was upon that margin that the Germans based their plans.

"His Singular Merits." Herr Goebbels was exaggerating only a little when he crowed: "In the air war England holds Germany at the wrist, but in the submarine war Germany has England by the throat and it remains to be seen who will lose their breath first." In Washington, Navy Secretary Knox admitted that the Battle of the Atlantic had swung in Germany's favor in the last month. Said Frank Knox: "The situation is serious and a tough one. . . ."

On the breast of studious, thin-lipped Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz the Fuhrer pinned a ribbon last week "in recognition of his singular merits in the conduct of the U-boat war." The singular Doenitz had shifted his attack north and west. U-boats, out of range of land-based planes, were hunting again in the mid-Atlantic, sleeplessly athwart the lines to Britain, North Africa and Russia.

Last week the U-boats' return to the American seaboard was announced. Atlantic skippers told of twelve-hour running fights. Now Doenitz sent his raiders hunting in multiple packs. His U-boats attacked in waves--first to disrupt escorts, then to bore in among the helpless merchantmen for the kill. To supplement the work of the U-boats was a still-powerful German surface fleet, reportedly moved from Norway fjords, possibly operating again against Atlantic convoys.

The Summer Tide. The Allies conceded that their counter-measures were so far inadequate. Heavy bombers stormed over submarine repair and construction centers at Wilhelmshaven, Duisburg, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Vegesack, but with limited success. A recent raid on Vegesack, touted as "possibly the heaviest single blow of the war against U-boat production," resulted in damage to seven of 15 unfinished U-boats. Germany's submarine production, to which all other naval building is subordinate, may be as high as 40 a month; Doenitz may already have upward of 600 raiders in his fleet.

New escort ships, new aircraft carriers (see p. 65), new defensive techniques, new arms and devices, a new command system were among the Allied answers. But even the most optimistic Allied claims did not predict a turn of the tide before midsummer; other estimates were that the ebb would be later than that.

For Germans, the Battle of the Atlantic could mean at most the difference between losing this year and winning a temporary stalemate--a stalemate which might give them time to deal with the Russians, time to perfect their continental defenses, time for their Pacific ally to draw off American strength. But the delay and loss meant a great deal to the Allies. Upon this battle turned the whole timing of the difficult, not-yet-begun European campaign, and therefore of the Pacific campaign, which must wait until Hitler is beaten. The Hamburger Fremdenblatt advised the Germans: ". . . Victory demands the utmost perseverance and requires that we should hold out 'five minutes longer.' "

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