MANUFACTURE OF DEFIANTS

Southland Times, Issue 24243, 28 September 1940, Page 6

MANUFACTURE OF DEFIANTS

Bigger Output Sought By Minister

SPLENDID WORK DONE IN BATTLE

(British Official Wireless)

RUGBY, September 26.

The Minister of Aircraft Production (Lord Beaverbrook) telegraphed as follows to the Government Director of Aircraft Factories: “I ask you to give us more Boulton-Paul Defiants. I impose on you the duty of increasing this output and speeding the delivery of these fighters. Use every resource and employ all your energy to secure maximum production. The splendid work done by the Defiant squadrons in battle makes the manufacture of this aircraft a task of paramount importance in the defence of our country. I rely on you now to pass this urgent message to the sub-contractors. On them depends the success of the Defiant programme.” Air Marshal W. A. Bishop, the famous airman of the last war, in a broadcast said it was a great thrill to be speaking on British soil when only a few days ago he was in Canada. Recalling a quarter of a century ago when he was “doing his humble best towards victory” Air Marshal Bishop said then we had difficult and unequal fighting in the skies. He continued: “Twenty-two years ago we drove the pirate Huns out of the skies of Europe.” The Empire, said Air Marshal Bishop, was on the march and with Britain through and through “As the months go by,” he added, “there will be trained pilots in thousands coming to Britain to do again what their forbears did before.” EMPIRE TRAINING SCHEME Speaking of the Empire air training scheme which he said, was far ahead of schedule Air Marshal Bishop said. “The Empire plan will bring from our Canadian shores the trained aviators of our sister Dominions, Australia and New Zealand and our own Dominion of Canada. Men from all parts of the Empire will train together as later on they will fight together. It will be an air force which is truly an Empire Air Force, binding the glorious ties of Empire which in the words of Thomas Burke, ‘are as light as air but as strong as links of iron.’ “Tonight we think again of the Britain of 1805 girding herself to meet Napoleon, the conqueror of Europe—as you gird your loins now to meet Hitler, the conqueror of half of Europe—a role that once belonged to the mother of our Empire alone and now belongs to all the Empire,” he concluded. “A heavy load of responsibility now falls upon the commonwealth of democratic peoples. I repeat that from Canada I bring you good cheer and a message of courage. We who up till now have had the easier task admire more than ever before the great and hard task which has been yours. I bring you greetings of Canada—of Canadians who are with you until final victory is achieved. We in Canada say: ‘Britain yet shall stand and our Empire emerge from these times of trouble, a greater, more vital and more decisive factor in world history than ever before.’ ” In a broadcast to Poland the Prime Minister (General Wladyslaw Sikorski) spoke of Hitler’s tactics in his aerial attack on London. GERMAN LOSSES

Stating that since the war started, Germany had lost 4581 aeroplanes and more than 15,000 airmen, General Sikorski said: “Very soon the Royal Air Force will obtain air superiority over the German Air Force. It is for this reason that Hitler, who knows that

to prolong the war means for him to lose the war has decided on the present method of air warfare. Since September 5, the German Air Force, which has been bombarding London is admitting by this fact that Germany has not succeeded in destroying Britain's chief centres of resistance nor in paralysing Britain’s defence preparations. Hitler hopes by the cruel destruction of London’s residential quarters that he will succeed in breaking down the morale and resistance of the British people. Anyone who knows England is aware that warfare methods of this kind must have a definitely opposite result. The population of London gives day by day and night by night impressive proofs of self-control, courage and determination. London follows in tlie footsteps of heroic Warsaw.”