NAVAL SUPREMACY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 127, 22 February 1941, Page 12

NAVAL SUPREMACY

Importance In Present

Phase Of War

CHURCHILL STRATEGY

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received February 21, 7.30 p.m.) RUGBY, February 20.

A penetrating analysis of Mr. Churchill’s realization of the importance of naval supremacy in Ihe present phase of the war has been made by a neutral commentator giving a broadcast from Boston, U.S.A. He said: "The very completeness of the German victories in the first half of last year enabled Mr. Churchill to discard the line of strategy which Britain followed during most of the campaigns between 1914 and 191 b and which its leaders clung to tenaciously in this war until Mr. Churchill took over the Government. "The German occupation of France took away one of the most pernicious sources of defeat —the Western front theory. What Mr. Churchill and Mr. Lloyd George before him had been struggling to get rid of for nearly a quarter of a century was effectively liquidated at Dunkirk. With the disappearance of the Western front myth Britain becomes united in strategic outlook, and although the loss of France and the Low Countries was a heavy price to pay the new unity is an immense asset and likely to take effect in the future. "She may have only a fraction of the men assembled on the Allied front in 1916-17, but everything she has is effective. She may have lost most of the Continent, but the Continent is a seething mass of discontent and incipient rebellion, so the German occupation is only partially effective. Moreover, if she does not control the land she controls the sea and the air to cover the enemy’s weak points with absolute sureness. The Navy is the key to Britain's policy today.”