Word: railways
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...Blow. Even so, it was easy to exaggerate what the Germans actually accomplished last week. They did not yet have the entire Don valley. They did not yet entirely command the valley's vital railway communications from Moscow and Stalingrad. They did not yet have control of the Voronezh area, which the Russians defended at all costs for its rail communications and its value as an anchor for the Red army's sagging southern line. The Nazis had the important manufacturing city of Voroshilovgrad, but they did not yet have Rostov, important for its factories, for access...
Slowly the Germans crept toward Voronezh. They crossed and cut Russia's important railway link between Moscow and Rostov. They commanded the middle reaches of the Don, although they had yet to master its lower channel, where most of the river's traffic moves, where Russia breeds her fighting Cossacks. Some 100 miles below Voronezh, the Nazis seized Rossosh. Then they drove on south and eastward...
...raids into Italy, hitting in the vicinity of Fiume and Trieste, were part of guerrilla operations that constantly harass Axis communication and supply lines, keep the Italians in jittery jeopardy. Russian reports said that several railway stations had been captured by General Mihailovich's Yugoslavs from German-Italian forces; they claimed that 39 locomotives and quantities of rolling stock had been destroyed...
Last fortnight the Japs took the last Chinese gap in one section of this route (Hangchow to Nanchang). Last week they reached for the railway between Nanchang and Chuchow, which in turn joins lines to Kwangsi, Indo-China, Siam and Malaya...
Conquest alone will not achieve this rail belt, and thus lessen Japan's dependence on her vulnerable sea communications. Japan will have to complete the chain with at least 600 miles of new railway. Furthermore, any Shanghai-Singapore route will be workable and safe from Allied air attack only if interior China is conquered. But the prospective rewards for Japan are great. Forestalling them is one job for the new U.S. Air Force in China, one that will take more planes than the U.S. had in China last week...