INVASION THREAT

Evening Star, Issue 23682, 16 September 1940, Page 5

INVASION THREAT

ORDER STILL NOT ISSUED HITLER IN NORTHERN FRANCE B.A.F. PLAYS HAVOC WITH PREPARATIONS press Association-By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, September 10. The ‘ Sunday Express ’ says that Hitler has arrived at new invasion headquarters in Northern France. He also invited German and neutral journalists to assemble on the I'rench coast to witness “ the greatest spectacle of the ages—the invasion of England. Reichsmarshal Goering is also at advanced air force headquarters, but the order tp invade has still not been issued. The constant attacks on the ports from which a German invasion of England is likely to originate must have seriously disorganised any preparations for a mass attack on this country. Ships which have been creeping down the. coast to their 'assembly points have also been subjected to heavy bombing, with the result that many of them have not completed their journeys. One significant result of the continuous R.A.F. attacks has been the change of tune of the Berlin radio. Whereas previously it announced that the invasion of England was imminent, and even gave probable dates on which the attack would be launched, the latest announcement is that an invasion of England will not be necessary, as a complete disorganisation of its civil and economic life is being brought about by air attacks and the German blockade. This may mean that an invasion of this country has been " postponed. And, again, it may not. INDISCRIMINATE BOMBING LATEST PHASE IN BATTLE FOR * BRITAIN CONFESSION OF FAILURE ON NAZIS' PART (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 15. (Received September 10, at noon.) Both in the Tress and among the general public the latest phase in the battle for Britain—the savage attack Dn the people of London —is the subject of much speculation, both as to its purpose and the reason it has been kdopted by the German authorities. A dumber of conclusions are generally Reached. First, the new tactics of mattering bombs indiscriminately over the metropolis (which no one can Imagine to be an important target in b purely military sense) is taken to be k confession of failure on the part of the Luftwaffe to do substantial damkge to the main centres of Britain’s ►ar production, to be a confession that the attacks which have been attempted tn Britain’s military targets, has been 100 costly, and that the German air lotce is beginning to feel the strain of Such heavy losses. Secondly, that, laving lamentably failed to inflict senbus damage to Britain’s war machine, Germany has now turned the force of ier attack against what she hopes will prove Britain’s weakest point—namely, civilian morale. At the same time

London is the centre of communications, the centre of political life, and representative of the nation in a way which is true of the capital of no other country. By destroying London the Nazis might well hope that the rest of the country would be paralysed and the way for invasion rendered easy. LONDON’S MORALE UNTOUCHED. But the morale of London is so far untouched, and everywhere the opinion is confidently expressed that it would require bombing on a scale vastly more widespread and more intense before the nerve of Londoners can be crushed on a scale which the London defences will never permit the Nazis to achieve without inflicting terrible losses. . Many different weapons have been brought to the defence of London against the constant night raiders. There are night flying fighters of which informed correspondents suggest a superior new type is already in production, anti-aircraft guns capable of putting up a formidable barrage of steel, and there arc searchlights and barrage balloons of an improved new type which have already claimed one victim. Damage to London has certainly been done, and much suffering has been caused. Many of her prominent buildings which form the chief target for Nazi bombs have been damaged. These include some dozen famous old churches, St. Paul’s Churchyard, the House of Lords, Buckingham Palace (three ti. c hit), The Law Courts, Somerset House, three of the largest hospitals and a number of smaller ones, and two newspaper offices. Some 2,000 of her civilian population have been killed and many more injured or rendered homeless. Yet the general life of the capital proceeds uninterrupted, and the capacity of the people to adapt themselves to the new mode of life is astonishing. Confidence is widespread in the power of Britain to defeat this lust as she has defeated former methods of Nazi attacks. CHANGES OF SUCCESS VERY LOW OPINION IN NEUTRAL COUNTRIES (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 14, Comment in the technical military Press in Soviet Russia and in the United States gives ground for the deduction that reports received from neutral experts in London have left no doubt as to the failure of the German effoit to disable the Fighter Command —this, as all commentators agree, being an almost essential preliminary to invasion with any chance of success. Now that the Bomber and Coastal Commands have made a further contribution to the frustration of the German High Command’s plans, it may be hazarded that the estimate of the German chances of successfully invading Britain are very low in well-informed military circles abroad, except whore German influence prevents free judgment. Some commentators, including a leader writer in the ‘ Manchester Guardian,’ seem to suspect th,at the estimate may even not bo very high in Rome, and that this may account for the delay in launching a diversion in the Middle East.