A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK A VERY high British officer was alleged to
have said just before or after D-Day that the Germans would be out of France in a month. The prediction seemed too fantastic for its author to claim to be taken seriously. Yet in view of the spectacle of what is happen- ing now, and in the light of the unprecedented weather which slowed down the earlier landings and kept most of the air-forces grounded day after day, almost week after week, who can say that, given conditions which there was every reason to expect, the prophet might not have been found to have prophesied truly? When the weather turned out as at did turn out early calculations had to be abandoned. What was said then was "We ought to have finished France in July ; now it will take till September." It probably will, but perhaps not so far into September. Incidentally it is time a word was said for one agency of which little is normally heard— the supply services. What they have achieved in these last hectic days is something hardly credible. So far as is known only one port, Cherbourg, is available, for St. Malo can hardly be in virorking order yet and it has considerable limitations at the best. The beaches are no doubt still being extensively used, but to keep columns ranging at top speed beyond Sens and Angouleme supplied with rations, ammunition and all necessities must have called for as brilliant work as has ever been manifested in this department of war- fare.
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