The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1940. A SECOND PHASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 201, 24 August 1940, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1940. A SECOND PHASE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, for the torong that veeds resistance, For the future in ihe distance, And the good that ice can do.

With the bombardment of the .-outh-eastcin shores of England by

long-rango guns and aerial attacks

upon London itself the "blitzkrieg" against England mny be said to have entered upon its second phase.' The shells fired across the Channel ore from bigger gum, than those of the Big Berthas of the last war, but their accuracy is no greater, they cannot be ranged upon any special target, and their principal object, in this stage of the conflict at any rate, is to terrorise the people of Kent and Susse-. and to break down the national morale. According to competent observers on the spot, their success in this direction is even less than that of the aerial bombardment. The people go about their business with a spirit which shows that if the new attack is having any effect at all it is tha reverse of that which Goering hoped for, a hardening of the dogged obstinacy which makes Britain stronger, more determined, and firmer in her calm and confident courage under the hammer blows of adversity. She is not taking the I blows quietly, but is striking back ■not only with aircraft attacks upon the emplacements, but with guns which themselves range clear across the Channel. There has been a dull, the second, in the intensity of the German air attack, but, as with the first, this is not accepted as a sign that the lightning war has passed its crest; rather is it regarded as a pause while fresh frightfulness is prepared, while Germany prepares for a more ferocious stage in the campaign which the propagandists six weeks ago announced was then to destroy Britain in a few days.

A thousand 'planes have been brought down over British territory or in her coastal waters since the first stage of the Battle for Britain began. That may not mean a great deal numerically to the Germans, but the loss of skilled pilots has a very vital meaning, and the effect on the morale of their own men must be more than a little disturbing to the enemy. On more than one day 25 per cent of the invading 'planes have been shot down without anything like a proportionate loss to the defenders, the German air force knows of its own losses, however darkly they are hidden from the German people, and in time the knowledge that the fourth crosschannel trip is, on the average, the I last, will have its effect. Much more will probably yet be attempted than the reconnoitring forays of the past month, which have been designed primarily to test out the weak points of the defences, to ascertain the maximum effect of the measures employed, and to constantly wear down strength. But Britain has not flirted with defeat by assuming that Germany will not concentrate on a great attack. The acceleration of American supplies, the steady stream of airmen from overseas to reinforce the intake from England, the continuous emplacement of new coastal guns, the building up of the defence in depth system to a twenty-mile band round the whole coastline, with the line growing steadily stronger every yard, the measures taken to deal with the twenty thousand parachute troops which Germany has in training, and the great naval weapon which lies hidden at sea or in fog-shrouded bases, aril these combine for a full measure of optimism when, and if, the great shock comes.

The story of the last six weeks gifes ground for that optimism, and if instead of an attack in full earnest Hitler continues a policy of attrition the two great factors of personnel and supply will tell increasingly against him. M. Baudouin, in his anxiety to help Germany, has given the show away badly by his statement that Britain's blockade is effective, when the Nazis have declared times without number that the only country blockaded was Britain, that it was utterly preposterous to suggest that she could blockade a whole continent ' and that all necessary supplies were entering Germany either 'through the blockade or from the East. The French assertion that the blockade is inhuman and un-Christian is a very complete answer to the German claims. «nd, taken in conjunction with the enormous figures of Britain's food and munitions imports, it is a further indication of the fact that relatively the strength of Britain is of faster growth. The people of the isles are not being weakened morally or spiritually by the course of the campaign; they know that the enemy can inflict still heavier blows upon them, but they also know that they can inflict terrible damage upon an invading force by land, sea or air, and that every month increases their | defensive power as well as their determination nnrl ability to win. |