CRUCIAL PHASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 8

CRUCIAL PHASE.

INVADERS AWAITED. " Important Days Ahead/ , Says Mr. Churchill. British OfflcUl Wireless. (Reed. 1 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 11. "If this invasion is going to be tried at all it does not seem that it can be long delayed. The weather may break any time," said Mr. Churchill, in his address. "Besides this, it is difficult for the enemy to keep these gatherings of ships waiting' about indefinitely while they are bombed every night by our bombers, and very often shelled by our warships, which are waiting for them outside. "We must regard the next week or eo ae very important weeks in our history. They rank with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel and , Drake was finishing hie game of bowls, or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon's grande armee at Boulogne. We read about all this in the history books, but what is happening now is on a far greater ecale and of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilisation than those brave old days. "Every man and woman will therefore prepare himself to do his duty, whatever it may be, with special pride and care. Our fleets and flotillas' are very powerful and numerous, Air Force is at the highest strength it has ever reached, and it ie conscious of its proved superiority, not indeed in numbers, but in men and machines. ■ "Our shores are well fortified' and strongly manned, and behind them, ready to attack invaders, we have a far larger and better equipped mobile army than we ever had before. Besides this, we have more than 1,500,000 men of the Home Guard, who are just as much soldiers of the regular army in statue as aTe the Grenadier Guards, and who are determined to fight for every inch of ground in every village and in every street. "It is with devout but sure confidence I say, 'L6t God defend the right. . These cruel, wanton and indiscriminate bombings of London are, of ■, course, part of Hitler's invasion plans. He hopes that by killing large numbers of "ivilians, including women and children, he can terrorise and cow the people of this mighty imperial city and make them a burden of anxiety to the Government, thus detracting or attention unduly from the ferocious onslaught he is preparing."