A SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 137, 5 March 1940, Page 8

A SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION

Increased intensity has marked the war in the air in the last few days. On the Western Front live Nazi machines have bitten the dust in two days and,a young Wellington airman has fuithei enhanced his claim to-be regarded as otic of the outstanding fighter pilots of the war. The Germans also claim some successes in aerial combat, but the Allies assert that they lost no planes in the two days mentioned.

Reconnaissances and patrols over enemy territory by the R.A.I*. have reached such a frequency that scon it will be news if they do not carry out such expeditions almost every night rather than if they do. Mostly they have mot with little or no opposition, but machines on the last patrol of the German seaplane bases in the Frisian Islands drew heavy tire. Nevertheless, they completed their task.

A German raider over the English Channel took a toll of more than 100 lives when three bombs struck a British passenger ship and helpless people in lifeboats were pitilessly machine-gunned. To this latest example of Nazi brutality must be added renewed attacks on fishing trawlers, though these exploits, which, it has been pointed out, require little courage, seem to have had but scanty results.

The indignities which neutrals arc being called upon to sutler by Germany continue to pile up. Two Dutch vessels have been raked by machine-gun fire, but escaped lightly. A Norwegian ship has gone to the bottom of the sea. Belgium, still smarting under the loss of two of her planes at the hands of a trespassing German bomber, now has to report that there have been further instances of foreign planes appearing over her country, though it is not stated that they were Germans. M. Spaak, Belgium’s Foreign Minister, has been moved to say that anyone trying to break through Belgian defences must count on prodigious losses of men and material.

The Russians arc still unable to call Viborg theirs. Desperate lighting continues round the ruined town, in some cases in the suburbs, but the Finns have yet to be finally dislodged and are fighting grimly to allow extra time for the next line of defences to be the better prepared.

Hapless Danzig and Hamburg citizens who so far forgot themselves as to listen to foreign broadcasts have, it is reported from Holland, been cast into prison, no doubt to reflect in secret on the subject of personal liberty as understood by Ihe Nazis.

Mr. Sumner Welles has concluded bis round of visits in Germany by seeing Marshal Goering and Herr Hess. 'I he sequel is a reported boast by Goering as to what would happen il he “pressed the button’’ and dispatched the German air fleets and a statement of war aims which are said to have been put forward by Herr Hitler.