FATEFUL BATTLE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21191, 14 August 1940, Page 10

FATEFUL BATTLE

BRITAIN FACES BLITZKRIEG PEOPLE’S WONDERFUL SPIRIT A London paper, in an editorial, says:—“Britain’s grand,’* writes an American newspaper man. “I wish I could put into the right words how grand it is, so that Americans could understand.” This tribute was written after contemplation of the British people facing the “Blitzkrieg,” and their preparations for a field-to-field and house-to-house defence. “Everywhere,” he declares, “is a tremendous spirit of confidence—not complacent confidence, but fighting confidence, which is the greatest defence of all.” Without fear, without melodrama, imperturbably as it faces its daily work, the British people face whatever Hitler’s bombers can wreak upon their island, whatever shortages of food the submarines and air-raiders can contrive, whatever secret or disclosed weapons may be used in the desperate attempt to end a struggle that can only be ended as Hitler himself declared in the Reichstag, by the defeat of the British Empire or of Germany. Faces Europe in Arms Not for the first time in her thousand years of history Britain faces Europe in arms against her. Her survival has not lain merely in arms, her Governments have always been, by some fatality, neglectful in that direction, and have prepared against the storm while it actually beat upon the nation. Her life has been in the spirit of her people. That' spirit has been, and is now, slow to anger, almost foolishly lacking in suspicion of its neighbours, but beneath its carelessness full of resolution. Even that resolution it has hidden behind a deceptive air of humorous and sportsmanlike aloofness from the nation’s perils and anxieties. Unlike the Germans, with their organised hates and their reiterations of their might and prowess, the British people looks upon its enemies with a sort of humorous contempt. It laughs as it fights, and fights as it plays its games, thus deceiving the careless observer of alien race, who fails to grasp that in this attitude the British are the only people in the world with that supreme confidence in itself that psychologists would call a superiority complex. It does not strike attitudes or proclaim its prowess in battle. It is there, and that is all that is necessary. People Not Awed By Nazis This people refuses to be awed by the great German Army and the great German air force. Its young men go into the air hunting Germans with much the same skill and sporting interest as the big-game hunter displays in shooting lions or elephants. A “dog-fight” over the Channel is another and more fascinating and dangerous form of football. The Ifirst assumption is that the enemy, though clever and courageous, is ; inferior in skill and resolution to the home team. The result is shown in the successful battles against superior odds, and the undoubted superiority shown by the British airmen, a superiority which becomes more obvious as the war goes on. The quality of British courage has nothing of that fanatic exaltation which led the German storm-troops to face the machine-guns in mass formation, shouting “Heil Hitler!” as they surged forward. It is a cool and calculated resolution admirable in team-work, and, at the same time, full of individual resource. It is the spirit which wins against odds. Confidence Not Shaken If the idea of the German leaders fs to destroy the nerves of the British populace, the humorous cartoons on the subject of the “Blitzkreig” should indicate to them how vain that attempt is. The people have the greatest confidence in the Navy, the Air Force, and their own efforts. The bombing-raids up to date—some of them have been severe—have not shaken that confidence. The unhappy experiences of the Italian Navy whenever it has stayed long enough to exchange shots with British naval forces, as well as the German air losses in many disastrous attacks, have aroused the emulation of every citizen capable of bearing arms, and a desire to show, too, what they can do to help in the defence of Britain and the ultimate defeat of Germany. | The carefully promulgated legend of German invincibility, whatever other nations may believe after the disaster of France, has not been accepted by the British people. Confident in their ability to “stick it,” and sceptical about Germany’s ability to land an effective striking force and maintain it on British soil,

Britain awaits with high courage the battle which will decide the issue of the war.