SWEEPING SEAS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20127, 22 December 1939, Page 7

SWEEPING SEAS

ALLIED CONTROL DEFEATING NAZI AIMS VITAL WAR CHAPTER FOUNDATION OF VICTORY LORD CHATFIELD’S VIEW (Eke. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.). (British Officio] Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Dec. 20. The Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, in a broadcast,. referring to the surprise felt by many people that Germany had not yet started the threatened military or mass air attacks, said: “You may be absolutely sure of one thing: If Germany has not started in either of these two ways, it is solely because she has not. got the confidence she could thus succeed. Whatever she may say. Germany needs a short war, and so

she hopes to break the British Navy’s grip on her supplies and defeat us rapidly where we are, indeed, most vulnerable, yet where we are strongest—namely, the sea.”

Lord Chatfield referred to this in connection with Germany’s illegal use of the submarine and the mine. Now Britain had broken the back of the submarine campaign, Germany was resorting to the use of a new type of mine, not laid according to international law, and more recently to the machine-gunning and bombing of British fishing vessels.

Foundations of Victory

Lord Chatfield believed that one of the vital chapters in the war was being now written, for in “defeating, with our great ally, France, the enemy’s plans to deny the seas to the merchantmen of the world, we are laying the foundations of victory and ensuring that all future military operations will be safely conducted.”

In a tribute to the Royal Air Force, Lord Chatfield said that by thensuccesses and endeavours they were building up that experience and confidence in themselves which would steadily give Britain the same ascendancy in the air that she had possessed for centuries at sea. Lord Chatfield concluded with a tribute to the magnificent war efforts of the Dominions and the Empire and to the French allies.