"THE EVIL THAT WEN DO-"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 79, 8 June 1945, Page 4

"THE EVIL THAT WEN DO-"

TWO days ago, exactly twelve months after D. Day, when the first concentrated Allied assault on Normandy began, the Third Reich ceased to exist. At 2.30 u.m. Hitler's Germany was no more. The declaration issued by the Big Four takes the place of the usual Armistice at the end of hostilities, but in view of Germany's unconditional surrender it marks her total subjugation to the Allies after five and a half years of bitter and futile struggle. Looking back on the days following June 6 of last year, when Allied forces were streaming into the Continent, steadily pushing the Nazi hordes back towards their original borders, while on the Eastern front the colossal Russian war machine was bringing utter destruction $,nd ruin to the opposing German armies, few thought that it would take twelve months of grim determined fighting, \vith every 'last ditch' defended with fanatical determination before the total collapse of the opposing regular forces was brought about. On the other hand, none; doubted that it would eventually be brought about. But Britain has bought the defeat of Germany with the lives of thousands of her fighting men, and civil population, and the price has not been low. Since that eventful June in 1940 which saw the evacuation from Dunkirk; the German drive behind the Maginot Linethe surrender of Norway; the declaration of war on Britain by Italy, and the fall of Paris, the epic story of the Island Kingdom and its fight for suryival has been written in blood and glory from the streets of London to the heart of Berlin. It has been written on the beaches, on the high seas, and in the skies. Everywhere that men have offered their lives in the fight against slavery and brutal domination, it has been written—and Britain will not forget. Nor will she forget the first terrible years of warfare when her population spent hours and hours in air raid shelters, and the sirens screamed night after night as merciless hordes of the Luftwaffe rained stick after stick of destruction on the women and children below. They are already fading into a dim memory, but that memory will always be there as a grim warning that it must not happen again. But it is not all memory. Whole buildings, whole blocks, whole towns, whole cities, utterly smashed and ruined after months of ceaseless bombardment bear mute witness to the trail of horror blazed .by a war, which] but twenty-seven short years ago was never to happen; and they bear mute witness to the indomitable courage and faith of a people which could not—which would not—be beaten. But Britain alone did not feel the iron claw of the swastika. Countless thousands of people, homeless, with no country, their very existence depending upon the whim of a madman, drunk with power, know by bitter experience the Hell of living under Nazi domination. No! Britain will not forget. Neither will the people of Europe. It can not happen again. It must not happen again*