The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1940. INVASION DELAYED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 233, 1 October 1940, Page 6

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

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1940. INVASION DELAYED.

Tor the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that reeds resistance, For the future in Ihe distance, 'And the good that we can do.

More than six weeks have passed since the date in August which it was intended should mark the completion of the German invasion of England. The clanger of invasion, as the British people have just been reminded, has not vanished, but there seem good reasons for believing that it has been lessened. The Germans have found, at heavy cost, that they cannot drive British shipping out of the Channel, and that massed air raids in daylight serve no purpose. They have found, too, that nightly bombing raids, although destructive of property, neither dislocate systems of transport and communications nor weaken the spirit of resistance of the civilian population. While they have been learning these lessons the weeks of autumn have been .slipping away. But it is probable that the disappointment of their hopes concerning what were to be the preliminary steps to invasion has not been the decisive factor in postponing the project. What has been, and continues to be, most influential is the striking-power of the Bomber Command. Even if there had been no bombing the Germans would have found the task of 'transporting and accumulating the troops and stores of all kinds, and the means of crossing the channel, a formidable one; but they have been prevented from concentrating upon it. Night after night the "invasion bases," sometimes in turn, sometimes all together, are the objects of terrific attacks, in which ships large and small, oil stores and supplies of all kinds are destroyed or damaged, and the ports and harbours made more and more difficult to live and work in. Further back, in Germany and German-occupied territories, the sources of some of these supplies, and the means of transporting them, are also attacked every night. There is no respite. All these efforts to forestall invasion have undoubtedly had marked effects, but whether one of those effects is to cause the temporary abandonment of the project cannot be ascertained. What does appear certain is that the necessity forced on him of delaying the invasion has caused Hitler and hia advisers to turn their attention to various other projects calculated to cattae Britain embarrassment and strain, and, if possible, to bring about a diffusion of her forces. The triple alliance obviously was designed for ithat purpose, and the endeavour now being made to force and cajole Spain into a belligerent position is another such project. Some success has been gained also in hostility of the Vichy Government. The prospects are that although the onset of winter, plus the R.A.F. bomber pffensive, will l«ssen the danger to the United Kingdom, the Mediterranean and possibly regions further afield will be the scenes of further Nazi initiative.