LONDONERS FACE ORDEAL

Southland Times, Issue 24233, 17 September 1940, Page 5

LONDONERS FACE ORDEAL

Civilian Morale Not Affected

GROWING STRENGTH OF DEFENCE (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, September 15. • The battle for London, an incident, but a supreme incident, in the preliminaries of the battle for Britain, is the subject of Sunday newspaper editorials. The Sunday Times writes: “Ever since France went out of the war and the British Empire was left to wage it alone two things have been evident to thinking men: First, that Britain can win; second, that on the way to victory she must face and surmount . a supreme ordeal. After months of waiting the ordeal is now on her. Beyond it lies victory, if she holds fast.” The newspaper adds that over the many harrowing scenes witnessed in the past week has risen the bravery common to English folk, refusing to be conquered and blossoming under trial into the flower of self-sacrifice and mutual aid. This only a very great people indeed can compass. J. L. Garvin, in The Observer, says that he is quite confident that there will be no flinching at paying the unavoidable price of success and salvation. MINUTE PERCENTAGE STRUCK Three-quarters of the huge region covered by London and its suburbs shows no serious trace of the enemy. Only a minute percentage of its millions of inhabitants has been struck. It would take more than the Nazis possess or conceive to wreck this wonderful city, much less daunt its soul. Both in the Press and among the general public the latest phase in the Battle for Britain—the savage . attack on the people of London —is the subject of much speculation both as to its purpose and the reason it has been adopted by the German authorities. A number of conclusions are generally reached as follows:— lx (1) The new tactics of scattering bombs indiscriminately over the metropolis, which no one can imagine to be an important target in the purely military sense, is taken to be a confession of failure on the part of the Luftwaffe to do substantial damage to the main centres of Britain’s war production, to be confession that the attacks which have been attempted on Britain’s military targets have been too costly and that the German Air Force is beginning to feel the strain'of such heavy losses. (2) That, having lamentably failed to inflict serious damage to Britain’s war machine, Germany has now turned the force of her attack against what she hopes will prove to be Britain’s weakest point, namely, civilian morale.

NAZI MILITARY ZONE IN NORWAY

STOCKHOLM, September 15. The newspaper Dagens Nyheter’s Oslo correspondent says that Germany has created a vast military zone on the south-west coast of Norway. A large section of this area is reserved exclusively for German troops.