"STILL CHURCHILL'S"

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1940, Page 7

"STILL CHURCHILL'S"

CONTROL OF THE CHANNEL London, Sept. 1. "The .English Channel is still Mr. Churchill's, I'll say," said an American journalist to-day after seeing for himself the escorting of a convoy. This refutation of Herr Hitler's claim that he controls the English Channel is contained in a description by the Daily Express' special correspondent, Sefton Delmer, of a British. Dutch and Norwegian convoy's voyage. The correspondents were aboard a naval trawler which was protecting the convoy's rear. "Apart from a Heinkel bomber which dropped a hasty bomb, then scooted, we were not challenged," Mr. Delmer writes, "and we arrived punctually at our destination, a port v/hich German communiques twice claimed to have wiped off the map. "German aircraft flew 6ver us, but did not attack. First, there were six Heinkels, returning to France, then 10 Heinkels, going home. Later a single Heinkel came over low and slid into the water. We reported his decease." "It- was growing dark when four Polish motor torpedo-boats circled us. They were accompanied by a terriflc engine roar, which was the reason we did not hear the approaching Heinkel before it dropped a bomb 200yds abeam. "The R.A.F. protected us at night by attacking German positions on the French coast and dawn found us at Beachy Head. "When we had tied up, the cook sighed: 'Gosh! That was exciting.' He was closing a 'thriller' he had been reading to pass the time on. an uneventful voyage through Mr. Churchill s Channel."