NAZI FAILURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 October 1940, Page 5

NAZI FAILURE

IN AIR ATTACK ON BRITAIN Emphasised by Mr Churchill BUT DANGER OF INVASION NOT YET OVER GENERAL SURVEY OF WAR SITUATION The Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill, in a statement on the war situation in the House of Commons, reported by the 8.8. C., reviewed the failure of the German air attack on Britain. He said the danger of invasion had not yet passed. He referred to events at Dakar, said the Burma Road would be opened after October 17 and spoke of Britain’s friendly attitude towards Spain. Analysing the German effort in the past month to carry cut the threat to raze Britain’s cities to the ground, Mr Churchill said that since August 15, when the Germans lost 187 planes, they had kept their short-range dive-bombers out of the fight. The Germans had sent four hundred planes over Britain every 24 hours and he did not think that rate could be much exceeded. Germany’s effort had absorbed a large part of her potential air strength and Britain felt more confident than ever before. On September 23, Germany claimed to have dropped 22,000 tons of explosives on Britain since the beginning of the war and in one night 251 tons fell on London alone. Those 251 tons of bombs killed 180 people. In the present war one ton of bombs had killed three-quarters of a person, whereas in the last war ten persons were killed for every ton of small bombs dropped from .the air. Mr Churchill referred to the vastly improved air raid shelters. They had expected that 3,000 people would be killed and 12,000 wounded each night, and night after night. The actual figures until last Saturday were 8,500 killed and 14,000 wounded. The rate of casualties had dropped week by week. There were 6,000 killed and seriously wounded in the first week of serious raids; under 5,000 in the second week, 4,000 in the third week and 3,000 in the last week. AT THE PRESENT RATE OF DESTRUCTION IT WOULD TAKE Ten YEARS FOR HALF THE HOUSES OF LONDON TO BE DEMOLISHED. QUITE A NUMBER OF THINGS WERE GOING TO HAPPEN TO HITLER AND MUSSOLINI BEFORE THE TEN YEARS WERE OVER. Referring to the call for reprisals, Mr Churchill said Britain would continue with increasing power to attack points in Germany where most injury could be inflicted and so lessen her power to strike at Britain. In spite of the German superiority in numbers of bombers, Britain had done more harm to Germany’s war effort than Germany had done to Britain. The winter would not prevent a continuance of indiscriminate bombing, but it might be that new' methods of meeting these attacks would make them more expensive to the enemy. It would be better for the enemy to find this out for himself by practical experience. Stating that the danger of invasion had not passed, Mr Churchill said the Germans had assembled sufficient shipping to throw half a million men in a single night either out of the water or into it. The reason for the invasion not having been attempted was the victory of British fighter aircraft, which had enabled the Navy to receive very great reinforcements, apart from the American destroyers.