DEMAND FOR ACTION
BY THE AMERICAN FLEET MADE BY WAR SECRETARY. BROADCAST TO THE NATION. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May G. The Secretary for War (Mr Stimson, in a nation-wide broadcast, advocated the use of the United States Navy to safeguard shipments of supplies to Britain. He warned Germany that the United States would not flinch and would not permit these munitions to be sunk in the Atlantic. He said: “We have taken our place definitely behind the warring democracies against the aggressors. The world is facing a great crisis. All our efforts must be turned towards the defence of the nation’s safety. Men under the leadership of Hitler propose to establish a world order in which they will be masters and all other people slaves. This so-called new order is openly hostile to us and is steadily encircling the Western world. Its advance agents are busy in the southern republics. building strategic air lines across vital portions of the Continent and creeping towards Panama. Armed forces are threatening West Africa, looking for a jumping-off place within easy reach of the Brazil coast. Propagandists are vigorously active here. They now arrogantly confront the world, including ourselves, with the alternatives of abject surrender or forceful resistance. For over a hundred years, control of the Atlantic has been exercised by the British Fleet. This tradition has been accepted by us as the dominant factor in ocean defence, whereupon our safety and mode' of life depends. Today the situation is gravely threatened. The British Isles have been a fortress against any despotic approach to our shores. If the British fall, their fleet, if it survived, would not have an adequate base for continued operations. Britain’s great shipyards would pass into the hands of aggressor nations, thus becoming seven times larger than ours. Under such conditions, our fleet would be unable to protect the Western Hemisphere from the overwhelming seapower then confronting it. We have only just begun to build up our defences. Time is the essential factor. Today, the wide-flung forces of the British Navy are threatened in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. . Those thinly-spread forces alone are securing us at the present time. Britain’s lifelines are threatened. The Nazi highwater 'mark is at hand in destroying shipping. We can successfully meet this most dangerous threat. We have a naval instrument prepared and ready for such an emergency. It is within our jpower to use that instrument and turn the tide of darkness back from the Atlantic and thus gain the means to preclude the Nazis forever’ attaining their full purpose. If our Navy secures the sea for the delivery of munitions to Britain, it will render as great a service to our country and the preservation of American freedom as in all its glorious history. Supplementing the efforts of the British Navy, it can secure all the oceans surrounding our continent, and check the onward rise of the tide of Nazism until the defences of the democracies are completed and permanently confine the malign forces until the tide of freedom rises ' again."
“On the other hand, if our Navy’s assistance is withheld until the power of the British Fleet and nation is broken, our power of execution would shrink to impotence. If we allow the present strategic moment to pass, our Navy merely becomes a secondary, instead of the decisive winning power in the world conflict. Is it conceivable that the American people would allow this to happen in face of the Congressional provision of billions for munitions? Shall we now flinch and permit these munitions to be sunk in the Atlantic? Our entire history does not show a precedent for such a supposition. The President has said we must not allow steps already taken to become ineffective. 1 do not minimise the danger. It is an occasion for grave seriousness. but not for gloom. 1 have studied the military potency of the Axis powers and I do not under-estimate their power. Provided we act with promptness and in a united spirit, I have full faith in the outcome. Unless wc are ready for sacrifice, if need be to die for our conviction that the freedom of America must be saved, that freedom cannot be preserved.”
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1941, Page 6
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709DEMAND FOR ACTION Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1941, Page 6
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