Courage and the Weather

"There is an officer who was the first of our Army to land at Gallipoli. He was dropped overboard to light decoys on the shore, so as to deceive the Turks as to where the landing was to be. He pushed a raft containing these in front of him. It was a frosty night, and he was naked and painted black. Firing from the ships was going on all around. It was a two hours' swim in pitch darkness. He did it, crawled through the scrub to listen to the talk of the enemy, who were so near that he could have shaken hands with them, lit his decoys and swam back. . . .".

This episode was chosen by the late Sir James Matthew Barrie as the last of a series of heroic examples for his essay, Courage. Last week the British Army in the Mediterranean Theater was engaged in matters far more crucial than the Gallipoli campaign. This sort of courage was the one weapon with which they were adequately stocked--and the man who courageously swam ashore that dark night 26 years ago was last week appointed Commander in Chief of the hottest British spot in the whole area: Crete.

He is a New Zealander named Bernard Cyril Freyberg; he is now 51 and a major general. At 16 he had already made some New Zealand records as a swimmer. Before World War I he was a restless young dentist in San Francisco, called "Tiny" because he was so huge. The Mexican Revolution in 1914 lured him across the Rio Grande on Pancho Villa's side; but he heard of the war in Europe, walked 300 miles to the west coast, earned his way to Britain by winning a swimming meet in Los Angeles and later a boxing match in Harlem. He became the youngest brigadier in the British Army at 27, and during the war performed several exploits almost as fantastically courageous as the Gallipoli swim. Between wars he stayed in the Army, and in 1939 was given command of the second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. In Greece he and his men piled up a composite record of courage in successive rear-guard actions.

Tiny Freyberg and his tiny force will have need of all the courage they can muster in Crete. The Germans seem to be committed to blasting and Blitzing the island. Suda Bay, a magnificent natural harbor, is the last important British operating base among the islands of the eastern Mediterranean, and the long island lies across the mouth of the Aegean. Last week, as expected, the Axis continued its process of occupying Aegean islands, definitely closed the Aegean to the British.

If Crete should fall, either by storming or by incapacitation due to bombing, the British position in the eastern Mediterranean would be pretty nearly untenable. The British would then have no practicable advance naval bases, and German bombers would have almost a semicircle of air bases within easy striking distance of the Suez Canal and of Alexandria, the last intact fleet base. General Sir Archibald Wavell's lines of communication from Egypt down to the Red Sea and westward along the Mediterranean would be subject to merciless attack from only 500 miles away.

Last week, even while Crete still functioned for the British, the Nazi noose seemed to be tightening: twice German bombers visited the Suez Canal area, damaging the railways by which both U.S. and British war materials had been moving up to Egypt. Nevertheless the British, with not much but courage of the Freyberg kind to go on, were still doing a valorous defensive job throughout the theater.

Siege of Tobruch was a month old when the Axis attackers tried again to take the place by an assault on the southwestern rim of the defense perimeter. Nazi tanks accomplished a small breakthrough. To the desert's awful heat German shock troops added that of flamethrowers, but the answering heat of British artillery exploded the flame-throwing apparatus, stopped the tanks, and squeezed the breakthrough into a small sac. The difference between the futile Italian and the furious British defense of Tobruch was not just a matter of command of the sea. The Italians used fixed artillery, which could fire outwards only, so that after a breakthrough the whole ring of emplacements was useless; the British, with movable guns, stayed at their posts after the breakthrough and trained cross fire inwards on the attackers.

German dive bombers pounded Tobruch day after day--even on days when the sudden heat made tanks so hot that they blistered skin at the touch, and when the southerly wind blasted men and machines with grating dust. German spying was particularly daring. Several Nazis were found in Tobruch in British military-police uniform, and two spies were said to have visited Tobruch's Army and Navy and Air Force Institute (canteen) un spotted.

Convoy Through. Having lost all of their heavy equipment in Greece and much in Libya, the Middle Eastern British were last week mechanically almost naked. Apparently it was decided in Brit ain to send out new tanks and guns, and that the matter was so urgent that the supplies should not go around Africa but should risk the Mediterranean. The last time the British tried that, the aircraft carrier Illustrious was knocked out and the light cruiser Southampton sunk.

One day last week spotters at Algeciras, Spain, near Gibraltar, saw two big British transports go through the straits eastward, escorted by two cruisers and a destroyer. The next day they saw the battle cruiser Repulse, the aircraft carrier Argus and five destroyers set out to catch up with these ships and others which had apparently steamed ahead. There was no question but that the British were determined to get this convoy through. The. weather was stormy and dark, and therefore favorable.

South of Sardinia, Axis warplanes came out to meet this formidable group. Next day's Italian papers ran ecstatic accounts of the engagement. Lavoro Fascista called it "A Black Day for the British Navy." The High Command claimed hits on two battleships, an aircraft carrier, two cruisers, a destroyer and three merchantmen. Next day German bombers attacked again south of Malta and claimed hits. When the convoy had had time to get out of danger, the British denied that a single vessel had been hit. Rome admitted that British warships (possibly going out from Alexandria to meet the convoy) had treated the Axis Libyan supply port at Bengasi to a thorough shelling.

The new British supplies might help the defense of the Suez Canal. But quite possibly the Axis, though sorry not to have sent the convoy and its shield to the bottom, was not sorry to see this materiel arrive in the Mediterranean Theater. Just as much strength as it added to the defenses of Egypt had been subtracted from the defenses of the British Isles.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.