BRITAIN’S SUPREME HOUR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 244, 12 September 1940, Page 7

BRITAIN’S SUPREME HOUR

PREPARED FOR . INVADER TESTING TIME AHEAD (United Press Association. —Copyright.—Rec. 11.13 a.m. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 11. “We must regard the next week or so as very important weeks in our history. They rank with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel and Drake was finishing his game of bowls, or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon’s ‘grande armee’ at Boulogne. We have read about all this in history books, but what is happening now is on a far greater scale and of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilisation than those brave old days.”

In these striking terms, the Prime Minister (Mr Churchill), in a broadcast to the nation this evening warned the people of ' thfe determination with which the enemy is pursuing his plans for an onslaught upon Britain, for which they, therefore, should prepare themselves with snecial' pride and care to do their duty and rallied their confidence with an-account of Britain’s ’strength in arms and men—above all in the courage of which the citizens of the bombed areas in London had given such a shining example.

BARBAROUS ATTACKS.

“When I said in the House of Commons the other day that 1 thought it was improbable that the enemy s an attack in September could be more than three times as great as in August 1 was not, of course, referring to the barbarous attacks on the civil population but to the great air battle which is being fought out between our fighters and the German air force, said Mr Churchill. “You will understand that whenever the weather is favourable, waves of German bombers, protected by fighters (often three or four hundred at a time), surge over this island, especially the promontory of Kent, in the hope of attacking military and other objectives in daylight. They are met by our fighter squadrons and are nearly always broken up. Their losses average 3 to 1 in machines and 6 to 1 in pilots.

BRITAIN STRONGER. “This effort of the Germans to secure daylight mastery of the an over England is, of course, the crux of the whole war. So far it has failed conspicuously. It has cost them very dear, and we have felt stronger and are actually relatively a good deal stronger than when the hard fighting began in July.

“There is no doubt Hitler is using up his fighter force at- a very high rate and that if lie goes on for many more weeks lie will wear down and ruin this vital part of his air force. That will give us- a very great advantage. ASSEMBLY Off BOATS-

“On the other hand, for him to try to invade this country without having secured mastery in the air would be a very hazardous undertaking. Nevertheless, all his preparations for an invasion on a great scale are steadily going forward.

“Several hundred self-propelled barges are moving down the coasts of Europe from German and Dutch harbours to ports in Northern France, from Dunkirk to Brest, and beyond Brest to the French harbours in the Bay of Biscay. Besides this, a convoy of merchant ships in tens and dozens is being moved through the Straits of Dover into the Channel, (lodging along from port to port under . the protection of the new batteries which the Germans have built on the French coast. There are now considerable gatherings of shipping in German, Dutch, Belgian, and French harbours all the way from Hamburg to Brest.

“Finally, there are some preparations made for ships to carry the invading force from Norwegian harbours. Behind these clusters of ships or barges there stand very large numbers of German troops awaiting the order to set out on a very dangerous and uncertain voyage across the seas. TYPICAL TECHNIQUE.

“We cannot tell when they will try to come. We cannot be sure they will try at all, but no one should blind himself to the fact that a heavy, fullscale invasion of this island is being prepared with all the usual German thoroughness and method, and it may be launched at any time now upon England, upon Scotland, upon Ireland —or upon all three,” declared Mr Churchill. .

“If this invasion is going to be tried at all. it does not seem it can long bo delayed. The weather may break at any time. Besides this, it is difficult for the enemy to keep these gatherings of ships waiting about indefinitely while they are bombed every night by our bombers and very often shelled by our warships, which are waiting for them outside.

BRITAIN PREPARED. “Our fleets and flotillas are very powerful and numerous. Our Air Force is at the highest strength it has ever readied, and it is conscious of its proved superiority not, indeed, in numbers, nut in men and machiues.

“Our shores are well fortified and strongly manned, and behind them, ready to attack the invaders, wo have a far larger and better equipped mobile army than we have ever nad before,” the Premier announced. “Besides this we have more than a million and a-half men of the Homo Guard, who are just as much soldiers of the Regular Army in status as the Grenadier Guards and who aro determined to fight for every inch of ground in every village, in every street.

“It is with devout blit sure confidence that I say, ‘Let God defend the right.’

“These cruel, wanton, and indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, part ol Hitler’s invasion plans. He hopes by killing large numbers of civilians —women and children —that he will terrorise and" cow the people of this mighty Imperial city and make them a burden of anxiety to the Government, and thus distract our attention unduly from the ferocious onslaught he is preparing. Little does ho know the spirit of the British nation or the tough fibre of Londoners, whose forbears played a leading part in establishing the Parliamentary institution and w'ho have been bred to value freedom far above their lives.

“This wicked man—the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatred —this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame—has now resolved to try to break our famous island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. What he has dono is kindle a fire in British hearts hero and all over the world which will glow long after all traces of the conflagration he has caused in London have been removed. He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady, consuming flame until the last vestiges of the ’ Nazi tyranny have been burned out of Europe and until the Old "World and the New can rejoin hands to- rebuild the temples of Alan’s freedom and Man a honour upon foundations which will not soon or easily be overthrown. MARVEL TO WORLD.

“This is a time for everyone to stand together and hold firm as they are doing,” continued Mr Churchill. “I express my admiration for the exemplary manner in which all the A.R.P. services in London are being discharged, especially the fire brigade, whose work has been so heavy and also dangerous. “All the world that is still _ free marvels at the composure and fortitude with which the citizens of London are facing and surmounting the great ordeal to which they are . subjected, the end or severity of which cannot yet be foreseen.

“It is a message of good cheer to our fighting forces on the seas, in the air. and in our waiting armies in all their posts and stations that ive are a people who will not flinch or weary of the struggle, hard and protracted though it will be, hut that we shall rather draw 1 rom the heart of the suffering itself means of inspiration and survival and ot victory, won not only for our own time, but for the long, better days that are to come,” concluded Mr Churchill.