The Evening Star THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1940. EVE OF INVASION?

Evening Star, Issue 23679, 12 September 1940, Page 8

The Evening Star THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1940. EVE OF INVASION?

The outstanding impression which most people will get from Mr Winston Churchill’s stirring broadcast to the Empire is that an attempted Nazi invasion of the British Isles cannot be long delayed. Equally strong is the Prime Minister’s opinion that the isles are well prepared to meet any form of assault launched by Hitler and hie High Command. These are indeed tense days in world history. The British Empire, particularly the Mother Country itself, may be called upon, perhaps within the next fortyeight hours, to defend Christian civilisation against a peculiarly maniacal form of attack by hordes of barbaric troops who, in their battle frenzy, will cry aloud the name of one mortal man, Hitler, in an endeavour to achieve victory. But free Britons have no regard for the name of Hitler. Their faith, however diffident most of them are about expressing it, runs deeper than that. Every lighting man and every woman and child, too, in the United Kingdom is prepared for whatever new danger may lie ahead. Every inch of territory will, if necessary, be defended with the utmost efficiency and determination.

Last month the Germans resorted to an old trick by trying to make the world believe that there wan to be no lightning blow at England nor hurling at her of overwhelming masses for destruction. As an American writer put it, the massed bugles of the German and Italian propaganda band played louder and louder their new tune: Britain would be hard to invade, and the new tactics of the Axis were to bomb out its arteries and starve out its defenders. But both Mr Churchill and Mr Anthony Eden (Minister for War) hastened to warn the people that the danger of invasion had by no means passed away. The fact that the Germans were putting out such rumours was regarded with a double dose of suspicion. What counts most of all with tho British War Cabinet is obviously the verdict of Royal Air Force planes which for many weeks have been keeping in close touch with the enemy coastline. In his latest broadcast the Prime Minister leaves no room for doubt over the fact that Germany is preparing for a large-scale attempt at invasion. Barges and merchant ships are known to have been creeping down the coast to the Channel ports under what protection they have been able to get from the German shore batteries. Such movements give the impression that an effort may be made by the enemy to batter a way to a foothold on English soil via the shortest sea route, but Mr Churchill makes it clear that concentrations in Norway and elsewhere have not been overlooked.

Preparations have been made to repel serious attacks at every point. The British Array, supported by legions of the Home Guard, is larger and more mobile than ever before, and it is certain that a hot reception awaits the fanatical slaves of Hitlerism. As early as Juno the British evacuated all women, children, and foreigners from areas within twenty miles of the more vulnerable parts of the coast. Vital bridges were blown up, low areas flooded, and men with guns, both soldiers and “ parachots,” were to be seen behind dvery shrub. In quick time England became virtually one large armed camp. Mr Churchill recently estimated that it would take from two hundred to two hundred and fifty vessels to land five divisions, and that such large convoys would invito fleet attacks at sea. If an assault comes in this shape the Germans will be tempted to steer for the Dover coast in the expectation that their troops would, to some extent, be covered by artillery and a strong air escort against British naval units.

In some other less conspicuous places in the British Isles it may prove impossible to prevent initial landings by small parties of the enemy. In this case the strategy of the defenders would be aimed at confining such landings to the beaches until the British Fleet, faced with little opposition, could come up to cut off the parties from all reinforcements except by air. No one who has followed closely the nows of the past few days and the reliable comment on it from various sources can now doubt that the Nazi High Command will have abandoned any idea it may have had of trying to make its air force the decisive factor in the war. Only one German fighting service has so far achieved conspicuous success in the European conflagration, and that is the army. Its power will have to be commissioned again, and, in view of the speeding autumn days, soon. This time, however, it cannot commence with a smashing advance by mechanised units. Nor will it bo able to demoralise the British populace.