FLANK UNCOVERED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 June 1940, Page 6

FLANK UNCOVERED

KING LEOPOLD’S ACT OF DESERTION MR CHURCHILL’S COMMENT. TERRIBLE TASK IMPOSED ON ALLIES. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 11.55 p.m.) LONDON, June 4. In his statement in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister (Mr Winston Churchill) said the surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British Army at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea of more than thirty miles in length. Otherwise they would have been cut off and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold condemned the finest army his country had ever formed. Contact was lost inevitably between the British and two of three corps fighting in the First French Army, who were still further from the coast than the British. It seemed impossible that- any large number of troops could reach the coast. The Germans attacked on all sides very strongly. Their main power—the power of far more numerous air forces —was thrown into the battle concentrated on the Dunkirk beaches. The enemy began to fire on the beaches, sowed magnetic mines and sent repeated waves of planes, sometimes over a hundred strong, to bomb the arriving troops. U-boats and high-speed torpedo-boats took their toll of the vast traffic. An intense struggle raged for four or five days. Great masses of German infantry and artillery were hurled against the ever-narrowing appendix occupied by the British and French armies. Meanwhile the Royal Navy, with a host of merchantmen, strove to embark troops. 220 light warships and 620 other vessels being employed on a difficult coast under increasing fire. It was in these conditions that the Army carried on. It had little or no rest. The ships made trip after trip, always bringing out men. The numbers brought back are a measure of their courage. Hospital ships carried many thousands of wounded but were a special target for Nazi bombs. The men and women aboard never faltered. The R.A.F. had been Engaged throughout the battle. Part of the main metrojoolitan force had now been brought into use, striking against German fighters and bombers. The retreating British and French troops threw back the Germans. Our Air Force inflicted a loss of four to one. Mr Churchill said that 335,000 British and French troops had been brought back'from the jaws of death. Inside this deliverance there was a victory It was gained by the R.A.F.

Mr Churchill said this was a great trial of strength between the British and German air forces.

The Germans were beaten back,” he added. “We got our Army away. All our fighters and all our pilots have been vindicated as superior to the opposition. When we consider how much greater would have been our advantage in defending the air over the United Kingdom, I gain great reassurance from this. There has never been, in all the world and in all the history of war such an opportunity for youth. These young men rank highest among all brave men.

“Our losses in a long series of fierce battles exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I stress the sympaHouse will all bereaved or still anxious. The son of the President of the Board of Trade has been killed and many in this House have felt affliction in its sharpest form. A large number of wounded have reached home safely. There may be very many reported missing who will reach home some day. One way or another against our losses may bo set a far heavier loss inflicted on the enemy. Our losses of material were enormous we lost, perhaps, one-third of the men ,lost in the opening days of the battle in March, 1918, but we have lost nearly a thousand guns, and all the transport and all the armoured vehicles with the Army of the North this loss will further delay the extension of our military strength. Expansion has not been proceeding in the past as we had hoped. The best ot all we had went to the B.E F They v/ere a finely-equipped army"