INVASION OF BRITAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 198, 12 August 1940, Page 7

INVASION OF BRITAIN

the advancing Germans in Belgium. Moreover, if the Germans did succeed in landing a powerful force, how would they be supplied? The worthy professor knows his British people sufficiently well to predict that they would rush to arms as one man to defend their land. His comment on this is that they would be mown down. He seems to overlook that fTiey might do a little mowing down on their iown account. It would be folly, concludes the Spectator, not to recognise the danger that such a powerful and resourceful enemy creates. But Britain Is thoroughly forewarned and the Germans are riot supermen. They would not be allowed to forget that Britain has a Navy, Air Force ? and Army which is ready for defence, apart from attacks on its own account.

POSSIBLE GERMAN STRATEGY EXPERT'S PLANS OUTLINED Now tliat suitable replies have been made to Hitler's demands, thoughts turn to the possibility of an invasion of England. England expects such an attack., and has been preparing for weeks to meet it. The Times has clearly indicated that the concentrations of barges being attacked so frequently by the R.A.F. are being assembled for the trip across the Channel. The Spectator, early in June, said that to-day the invasion of England is the major object of German strategy. It has for years been a subject of intense German study and is Hitler's darling project. The German campaign in the Low Countries and France was directed at the seizure of the Channel ports,, the holding of which was regarded as an essential preliminary to an attack on the British Isles. Professor's Plan. The main scheme of such an attack may follow the lines laid down by Professor Edward Banse, whom Hitler appointed Professor of Military Science at Brunswick Technical College in 1933, though this writ er does not discuss later developments such as the use of parachutists and troop-carrying aeroplanes. Professor Banse is regarded as the leading exponent of Nazi military aims and his book containing the scheme for the invasion of Britain, has been, says the Spectator, a textbook of Nazi military science. Banse in this book was very critical of the conduct of the German operations of 1914-18. He considered Holland should have been invaded as well as Belgium and that one of the initial mistakes was the failure to strike at once at the Channel ports. So far the Germans liave this time followed his advice. Plan's Assumptions. He pointed out the advantages of possessing the Channel ports and went on to say that if Calais and Boulogne were in German hands the task of getting an army across to Kent should prove a "relatively simple business,"' since the attacker could clear the Channel of British ships by the use of artillery* In the case of the Channel crossing he assumed the power of thrj German artillery (plus the air force) to beat off the British Navy and facilitate a landing. In the case of the North Sea crossing he started from an assumption said, to havot been made by the British in the early stages of the last war (when the German navy was far stronger than it is now), that Germans setting out from Germany could transpart 160,000 men across to East Anglia "as the Grand Fleet- could not get into action within less than 24 hours of the transports being sighted." If the Germans used the Belgian and Dutch. coast he concluded that 250,000 men could be got Across before the Grand' Fleet could intervene. Scheme of Invasion. This accomplished, the professor's scheme of invasion is as follows:— He would land in Norfolk or .Suffolk and occupy the broad East Anglian peninsula, between the Thames and the Wash. He could also occupy Kent and. Sussex, just south of the Thames, but he eomiiueredt, he' first plan preferable, as that alone could threaten both London and the industrial areas of the Midlands. This thrust would be followed by one from Ireland to take the defenders in the rear. This, says the Spectator, may be taken to be the essence of the German plan, modified by the use of aerial bombardment parachutists, and troop-carrying, planes. But it adds that the confidence of this sanguine strategist is hardly justified by his argument. Not So Easy. Why, for instance, should he sup pose, because the Grand Fleet has been based on Scapa Flow, that Britain should have no warships nearer to the scene of invasion capable of dealing with his transports? Has the use of German artillery plus aeroplanes at Dunkirk given the least justification for his assumption that the Straits of Dover could be denied to our fleet? Even now, it might be added, British convoys are passing through those straits. Moreover, everything is based on the extraordinary hypoth»f;is that the British land forces would be incapable of dealing with the Nazi hordes as they disembarked. The North Sea is a far more effective barrier than some of the rivers behind which British forces halted (Continued foot previous column)