COURSE OF THE WAR.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 August 1940, Page 5

COURSE OF THE WAR.

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER’S SURVEY Resolute and Hopeful Preparations for Long Struggle GERMAN AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION OUTPACED WIDE-SCALE OPERATIONS ANTICIPATED IN MIDDLE EAST Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Winston Churchill covered a wide field in his review of the war, a Daventry broadcast states. The main points of his speech were: Britain had decided to tell the United States that she would be glad to place defence facilities at her disposal by the lease of suitable sites in Newfoundland and the West Indies for naval and air bases. In the last war, the British casualties were 365,000 in the first twelve months; this time they were about 92,000, including civilians, and a large proportion of that number were prisoners. The present type of conflict, in which advantages were gained by mechanical means, was well suited to the genius and resources of the British Empire. Britain could draw on the resources of the whole world and they had to prepare themselves for the campaign of 1941-42. Their energies would not be confined to defence; they must strike the enemy heavy blows. Britain intended to blockade Germany, Italy, France and all other countries under German power and would refuse to allow food to enter those territories, as it would be pillaged by the enemy. Britain had rearmed her army and had ferried across the Atlantic an immense amount of munitions.

British factories were working at intense power, and more than two million men in Britain had been equipped with rifles and bayonets. The Navy was far stronger than at the beginning of the war, the mercantile tonnage was larger and stores of food were more abundant than in peace time. The course of air fighting was favourable to Britain as all German machines shot down, with their pilots, were lost, whereas a considerable proportion of the British were saved. Britain had overflowing reserves of every type of aircraft. New production was bigger than the enemy’s and American production was only just beginning to come in. The defection of France had been deeply damaging to British positions in the Middle East. It had been decided not to defend Somaliland some time before the beginning of the war. Wide-scale operations were probably impending in the Middle East.