PRELUDE TO BIGGER THINGS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 115, 13 April 1940, Page 8

PRELUDE TO BIGGER THINGS

FIRST LORD’S VIEW OF BATTLES ALLIES READY FOR VICTORY (United Press Association. —I3y Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 11. “I feel the Scandinavian adventure is only a prelude to far larger events impending on land. We have probably arrived at the first main crunch in this war. We are ready to encounter the enemy’s utmost malice and achieve victory for the world cause.” With this striking passage the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr Winston Churchill) continued his review, in the House of Commons, of the series of large-scale naval engagements which have been taking place between the Allied Fleets and the German navy off the coast of Norway and .Sweden since Monday.

SYMPATHY FOR SUFFERERS. The Germans doubtless suspected that minefields would be laid, therefore they decided to use the corridor to send merchantmen to the north filled with military stores and German soldiers concealed under the decks, with orders to seize various ports ot military value. Germany also set in motion other invading forces, said the First Lord. “We sympathise with and understand the terrible dilemma of the Norwegians, who for months have writh ed in helpless anger while scores ol their ships have been sunk and hundreds of their sailors drowned.” “We shall aid them to the best of our ability,” he said. Mr Churchill said that, at dawn today, torpedo-carrying aircraft attacked enemy shipping at Trondheim. Fifteen of the sixteen ’planes returned. “The Germans have already ordered all merchantmen from the Skagerrak and Kattegat area. Our advice coincides with theirs in this respect.” Mr Churchill denied the British recapture of ports on the Norwegian coasts.

“About five weeks ago the Home Fleet returned to Senpa Flow. 'J hero have been five raids there, the latest being last night, when 60 aircraft attacked without doing the slightest damage, although the enemy lost six aircraft. We are ready to fight this matter out at Seapa Flow.” NEUTRALS’ PLIGHT.

“Germany obviously prefers to strike the weak rather than the strong, therefore all her small neighbours were, and still are, highly alarmed,” said the First Lord.

Even neutrals, who had done most to placate Germany and had been the greatest aid to Germany could not feel sure they would not he attacked without reason and without warning, being speedily overrun, reduced to bondage, and pillaged of all property, especially all eatables.

“In the small hours of Monday we Teamed that Denmark and Norway had drawn the unlucky numbers in the sinister lottery,” lie proceeded. “The Allies, in the last war, were so deeply injured by the German use of the Norwegian Corridor that England, France and the United States induced the Norwegians to lay a minefield in territorial waters. The Admiralty, after the outbreak of the war, brought this moderate and respectable precedent to the attention of Norway. Our Government urged it to allow the establishment of a minefield in Norwegian waters to compel traffic to come to the open sea. It was only natural and right. The Government hau long been most reluctant to incur the reproach of even technically violating international law, but it became intolerable to watch week after week iron ore being transported through the corridor for the manufacture of shells to strike down the young men of England and France in the 1941 campaign. The Government ultimately decided to interrupt the traffic in the Norwegian Corridor, every precaution being taken against the slightest danger to neutral ships and loss of life. “It can be proved without doubt that the German troop movements began before the laying of the Allied minefields,” he said.