GREAT NAVAL FIGHT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 114, 12 April 1940, Page 7

GREAT NAVAL FIGHT

PROGRESS OF OPERATIONS MR CHURCHILL’S GRAPHIC REVIEW ACTIONS IN NORTH SEA (United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received April 12, 11.30 a.m. RUGBY, April 12. “Since Monday the fighting in the seas around Norway has continued night and day. Widely dispersed but none the less general action between large numbers of German ships and aircraft and British naval and air forces is going on now.” In such words the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr Churchill) conveyed to the House of Commons an atmosphere of strain and expectancy which must last until the actions are completed and full information is received. Meantime he fortified the confidence of the House with a candid » recital of details so far as they are known of the first operations, and members made no complaint at his refusal to lift the veil, “which should properly and discreetly cover the future operation or operations in progress at this moment,” which Mr A. V. Alexander (Labour, former First Lord of the Admiralty) joined him (he spoke later for the Opposition) in warning against rumour and “dubious news” during the necessary hours and days of silence. The House heard with satisfaction Mr Churchill’s assurance that in the considered view of the Admiralty the Allies had in the strategic and military sense greatly gained from the error of Hitler in spreading the war to Scandinavia, which Mr Churchill compared with the mistake committed by Napoleon when he invaded Spain. Earlier Mr Churchill had described how the existence of the “geographical and legal covered way” down the Norwegian coast had been the greatest impediment to the Allied blockade. Warships moved up and down it as they thought convenient. U-boats used it as they thought fit. Stray German liners and merchant ships trying to get back to Germany from the outer seas sought cover there for its 800-mile length. So he put first among the advantages Hitler’s wild gamble had bestowed on the Allies the fact that “this accursed corridor is now closed forever.” In this way Hitler had doubled the efficiency of the Allied blockade. Further, he had made a whole series of commitments upon the Norwegian coast for which he would have to fight, if necessary during the whole summer, for by violating the independence and soil of Norway he had enlisted against him a virile people, capable of maintaining in a large, wild and mountainous country —full of positions where free men could shelter and fight—and with British and French aid, prolonged resistance. For the future the British could take what they wanted of the Norwegian coast.