War on Civilians

Fifty weeks of the first year of World War II were history last week when Prime Minister Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill rose in the House of Commons to give Britain an account of the state of hostilities. Britain hung on his word as he said:

> "Hitler is now sprawled over Europe. Our offensive springs are being slowly compressed, and we must resolutely and methodically prepare ourselves for the campaigns of 1941 and 1942. . . ."

> "We have rearmed and rebuilt our armies in a degree which would have been deemed impossible a few months ago. We have ferried across the Atlantic, thanks to our friends over there, an immense mass of munitions of all kinds: cannon, rifles, machine guns, cartridges and shells; all safely landed without the loss of a gun or a round. . . ." (British authorities revealed last week that 600,000 badly needed Springfield rifles, 500 field pieces [mostly 75 mm.] and large quantities of ammunition, bought in June from the U. S. Government's surplus World War I stocks, were not only safely landed in Britain but distributed, ready for action.)

> "We are able to verify the results of bombing military targets in Germany, not only by reports which reach us through many sources, but also by photograph. I have no hesitation in saying that this process of bombing the military industries and communications of Germany . . . affords one, at least, of the surest, if not the shortest, of all the roads to victory. Even if the Nazi legions stood triumphant on the Black Sea, or indeed, upon the Caspian; even if Hitler was at the gates of India, it would profit him nothing if at the same time the entire economic and scientific apparatus of German war power lay shattered and pulverized at home. . . ."

"Greater Ordeals." Winston Churchill's confident words contained no promise of a cessation of German air raids on England. A more authoritative voice spoke on that subject, the voice of handsome, immaculate Air Secretary Sir Archibald Sinclair. Sir Archibald is seldom heard in Parliament. One reason is that, on his feet, he stammers. Yet this 49-year-old Scottish baronet, who owns 100,000 acres in Caithness, lives in Thurso Castle and rose to the top in Parliament as a diligent, sincere, fighting Liberal, is a nailer for work, a respected soldier, and at a radio microphone none can read a speech more mellifluously than he. Last week he went on the air. Said he:

"No doubt you have been encouraged by the results of the recent air battles but you would be mistaken if you were beginning to think that the danger of invasion or massed attacks from the air is past. I must warn you against relapsing into any mood of complacency. The future may well hold for us far greater ordeals than any through which we have yet passed. Only a small fraction of the Germans' heavy bomber force has yet been, engaged."

Something Sour. By no stretch of even. Adolf Hitler's imagination could Phases 1 and 2 of the Battle of Britain be called successful. Those phases were to have been: 1) the air-smashing of British naval bases, ports and shipping; 2) the crippling of R. A. F.'s fighter strength. Last week neither of those things had yet been accomplished, and the fact that no invasion had yet been attempted strongly hinted that the Nazis had had to revise their plans. One possible hitch was that the Nazis had not so far obtained Spain's aid for an attack on Gibraltar.

But last week's events gave other evidence something had gone sour, at least temporarily, with Hitler's plans, and new German plans were being laid:

> French sources reported that Hitler and Goring went to Paris to confer with their Air Marshals, and Goring later went to Picardy for consultations at the fighting air bases.

> German air attacks on Britain during most of last week were on a smaller scale than the week before. German communiques indicated that flying weather was bad, but except on one night bad weather did not deter the R. A. F. from bombing German factories, freight yards, airports, canals, and forcing all German radio stations to shut down.

> Germany's solemn proclamation last fortnight of a total blockade, by mines and other means, of the British Isles, was followed last week by little action. Nazi planes attacked a few ships off the Irish coasts. But while Germany claimed that Britain's west-coast ports were clogged with shipping in a huge maritime traffic jam, Britain reported that food imports from Ireland (butter, eggs, cattle) were normal. Fact was, the "traffic jam" in Britain's western ports was due to the arrival there during the past months of greater masses of foods and war materials from abroad than at any time since the war.

> The Luftwaffe used the week's lull to test Britain's night defenses. A few experienced German pilots were sent over nocturnally, and one night shortly before dawn they gave London's fashionable West End its first taste and sound of high explosive. Actually hit were tenements, shops and an empty cinema in a slum district. The slumsters laughed because, while none of them was killed, a local undertaker's emporium was demolished.

> One morning when a British coastal convoy of 18 ships, strung out for a mile and guarded by destroyers, steamed under the tall chalk cliffs of Dover, a series of four bright flashes, closely spaced, followed by heavy smoke puffs, were seen on the French Coast, 20-odd miles away. About 80 seconds later four geysers spouted in the Channel near the convoy, accompanied by the crashing roar of four big shells exploding. At last the Germans were trying out their threat to "command the Channel with coast artillery."

Fighter aircraft raced aloft to shoot down a Nazi reconnaissance plane that appeared overhead as a target spotter. In an hour and 20 minutes the Germans sent over 108 shells, but without "eyes" their shooting grew ragged and not one ship was hit.

That night the big batteries at Calais opened up again, this time aiming at the city of Dover (pop. 41,000). The random night fire of 8-to-14-in. guns at 20-mile range gutted two churches, shattered private houses, smashed a wineshop, caused landslides down the cliffs, did no military damage. Even the people of "The Toughest Little Town in England" thought this was too dangerous, began to evacuate. The R. A. F. retaliated by bombing the German batteries; British artillerymen fired a few rounds to get the range for future reference.

New Objective? Before the week ended, Fuehrer Hitler was officially reported at his "front-line headquarters" for a new air show. As soon as the morning sun dispersed Channel mists, wave after wave of Nazi bombers and fighters swept across to southeast England. Ramsgate was the bombers' special target. Dive bombers smashed the Ramsgate gas works, nine pubs, a mission hall, hundreds of houses. Civilian damage and casualties were Britain's heaviest. Then the Germans began repeated attempts to raid London. In their first evening raids they landed bombs for the first time in "The City" (financial district) which filled the streets with drifts of broken glass, barriers of masonry. Great fires were started which blazed for several hours lighting up the sky. But London's defenses forced most of the raiders to do their bombing in the suburbs.

Portsmouth was also raided, and damage, admittedly heavy, done in residential districts. The midlands were repeatedly attacked and Folkestone was the victim of a bombing attack which destroyed many houses and apartment buildings. At several places planes machine-gunned civilians and even children on beaches. Bombs were dropped for the first time on the Irish coast, killing three girls.

After London was bombed, the British guessed what was coming. They bombed Berlin for the first time in the war, using high explosives on factories and raining warning pamphlets on residential districts. But the German raids on residential areas continued. British civilian casualties mounted noticeably although the British reported bringing down 45 to 50 German planes daily. It became clear that Phase 3 of Hitler's war on Britain had as its object civilian morale as well as military damage. Hitler had to find out whether, by making war more gruesome, he could make it more effective.

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