STRAIN WELL MET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1940, Page 7

STRAIN WELL MET

WORK OF THE BRITISH NAVY FIRST LORD’S SURVEY RECORD OF MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. GRATITUDE THAT IS DUE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 12. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr Alexander, speaking at Manchester when inaugurating a local war weapons week, said he was proud to be the political head of the war work of the Navy. Ils task had been greatly increased and complicated by the loss of the French Navy, the valuable French base positions of which had made it far easier for the enemy to conduct its Üboat campaign. The whole of the convoy and escort work consequently fell on the British ships alone. They had also to contain the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean. That was a situation never reckoned with, but the strain had oeen met. "The menace of the magnetic mine has been faced and overcome. Great convoys with food, raw materials and arms and men from the Dominions, and reinforcements to our garrisons overseas, have sailed and arrived with clockwork regularity,” Mr Alexander said. "Demands for special service came from the Army and the Air Force and those charged with safeguarding our shores from invasion. That has. had to be done with forces far fewer than our naval staff could wish to have but it has been done and every time you eat. you ought to say 'thank you.’ Now. I am glad to say, a stream of new ships is coming steadily to hand from the yards. “What is the state of the war? lam continually asked if I think we can win, though less often now. A great many problems have to be overcome and a great many dangers faced. There may be many new fields to be entered. Suffering and tribulations are certain, but I see the situation in sharp contrast to those nights in early June when it was touch and go if we lost the whole B.E.F. or not, and when even friendly observers doubted our ability to stand the strain. “But. contrary to the gloomy anticipation and fears of those days, the battle of Britain is not proceeding according to Hitler’s plan, and, given a continuance of the unity and endurance and the pressing forward to a high aim we have set ourselves, we cannot be beaten.”