NOT TAKING IT EASY

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 77, 26 September 1941, Page 1

NOT TAKING IT EASY

BRITAIN'S GIANT WAR EFFORT

MORE AND MORE HELP FOR

RUSSIA

LONDON, September 21

Since July the Russians have borne the full brunt of the German attack. Her tough resistance has forced Germany to call off the blitz on Britain and so the British | Isles with the exception of Hull (has had an easier summer. But we j have not taken it easy. I Here are some of our betweenblitz achievements:— Tanks for Russia From September 22nd for seven days the whole output of our tank factories will go to the front line in Russia. "There will be no delay, there will be more to come. But the tanks you build next will go forthwith into action to play .their part in the battle now." Our Minister of Supply in making this announcement knew he was promising not only quality but quantity. Our heavy tank output for August, 1941, was just double that for March: double again, blitz or no blitz, is our schedule for five months to come. Not only tank output, but aircraft output was beating all records by the end of August. The high levels reached are largely due .to British industry's wholesale conversion of its peace-time plant to war purposes. For instance, Britain's motor car industry, which produced 341,000 passenger cars in 1938 is now making only 400 passenger cars yearly. Britain Shall Not Burn - On September 14, Britain learned that on August 18 her leaders had. seized the chance to transform 1400 independent fire-fighting units into a great-national fire force. For four weeks .the news had been- secret because the change-over meant some temporary dislocation and the enemy might have taken advantage

of the comparative weakness while it lasted. Today all is ready. Britain realises that the greatest menace the Luftwaffe can offer is the menace of fire, but she also knows her national fire service— 250,000 strong—is the largest firefighting unit in the world and that under its new command it offers the maximum of speed and flexibility in every category from firemen to foam units, from water-towers to field telephones. As a result of summer shelterbuilding there is now room for 4,772,000 people—eighty' per cent of London's present population"— to sleep in Government-provided shelters. The shallowest has been made 'quake proof for we now know the danger of surface shelters is not so much the bomb or its blast as the minor earthquake caused by the explosion. The deepest are ten new tube tunnels radiating from existing" stations, planned so that they can carry our new express undergrounds after the war. Our Women do not Wait for it Britain's women do not wait for the call-up. A high percentage have grasped on their own the importance of discarding non-essentials and concentrating^ on jobs that matter. The nation-wide survey of the 1920 to 1916 classes reveals that of 1,500,000 women registered 867,000 ■or 57 per cent were already engaged on work of urgent national importance. In the north-western region where the tradition of women's employment is strongest, out of 234,000 women who registered in the six classes aged twenty to twenty-six over seventy per cent were already in full time employment, only 4700 were unoccupied or unemployed. Salving for Victory Our new salvage drives are making September headlines. Half a million .tons of scrap iron, principally from bombed houses that are due for collection in the next weeks, more than offset the stoppage of our usual scrap imports from the United States. Of the waste material already collected, 1,500,000 tons of scrap metal have been put back into industry—enough to build ten destroyers, 10,000 tanks, 20,----000,000 shells.

Everywhere, from .the Shetlands to Land's End, from Derry to the forward, observation post at Dover, we have left far behind us that sitzkrieg mood that assails people who do not know what they are in for. We know today just how formidable our adversary is and how formidable is the amount of energy we must generate before we can win. Hitler has so far achieved his successes because he has contrived to lull into a sense of false security everyone who is not in his immediate line of fire. He may be good at lulling, but here in Britain we are finished with his lullabies.