“WE SHALL NOT LOSE”

Evening Star, Issue 23881, 10 May 1941, Page 10

“WE SHALL NOT LOSE”

AMAZING SPIRIT DF THE BRITISH SUCCESS OF INVASION DISCREDITED THRILL FOR AIR RAID SPECTATORS “ You can take it from me that the people of Britain will never be terrified into leaving their country, and they will never let anyone in. You simply cannot suggest to any Britisher that Britain might lose the war; everyone is confident that the end must be a British victory.” These straight words came from a man not long in New Zealand who has lived most of his life in the Clydeside area. He has experienced the full ferocity of Nazi indiscriminate bombing, both directly as a civilian and more indirectly as an A.R.P. worker. His home was completely destroyed by a direct hit, nothing, excepting some bed sheets, being recovered. At the time he, his wife, and son were in the house, but by some amazing chance they came through the ordeal practically unscathed, although the son, a lad aged 11, was thrown bodily 11yds distant. It was only the effects on the lad’s nervous system that decided the homeless couple to leave England. The man himself is past military age, and as it was not found possible to send the lad out by himself the small family departed in a body. •' INVASION WILL NEVER SUCCEED.” Of conditions in England to-day he painted a graphic picture during the course of conversation with the ‘ Star.' The British Isles to-day are an armed camp; men in uniform everywhere, eagerly waiting the threatened onslaught of the. enemy in the way of invasion. “ That can never succeed,” he said. “ Never at any time, ahd there isn’t a man in England who considers that German soldiers will ever do more than perhaps get a few men on beaches here and there.” For some time before he left raids were nightly affairs, and both he and his wife, as an A.R.P. worker and an ambulance driver respectively, had to turn out at any or all hours of the night just as soon as the alert went. No matter, what the intensity of the raid at the time, their duties had to he carried out, and they were, by a vast army who never complained, but only stiffened in their resolve to see the struggle through to the end. UNCOMPLAINING PEOPLE. “No matter how broken a night’s sleep, no matter how severe the raids, in the morning men and women turn up at their daytime work as punctually as possible. You never hear them complain, Perhaps the only reference to the raid might be the remark, ‘ So-and-so’s house got it last night.’ There are no complaints. Elderly people have been requested to leave danger areas,” he said. “ but they will not go. They say, ‘ We’ve lived here all our lives, and Jerry isn’t going to make us leave.’ You read that sort of thing in the cables in your newspaper, and it is perfectly true.- That is the spirit of people in England to-day.” Even in the worst bombed areas, he said, people remained, no matter what the conditions under which they lived. In the Dover district, for instance, many homeless people had dug caves in the chalk cliffs and,were housed there. He described Nazi bombing as utterly and entirely indiscriminate, but that was partly brought about- because the extensive balloon, barrages . made the raiding planes fly high, and accurate aiming, if it was ever, contemplated, was made more or less impossible. Not every town in England, by a long way, has been raided,, or had been raided up till the time he left, and many had never even heard the drone of an enemy plane. DOGFIGHT THRILLS. A thrill that remained a thrill with the people was The sight of a dogfight high in the sky. Always there were hundreds of people looking up, and invariably a burst of cheering was raised if the German plane was downed. These spectators, however, gave the gunners of the British machines some anxiety, as there was no telling where spent bullets might fall. But it is not possible to force people to go to air raid shelters—if they will not go, they will not. He said he had been several times in. cinemas where ' the continuity of a picture had been broken and a slide flashed on the screen stating raiders were approaching. Instructions what to do and the whereabouts of the nearest shelters were given, but he said he had yet to see anyone get up and leave the theatres. THE SPECTACULAR SIDE.

Night raiding had its spectacular moments, he said. As soon as raiders were known to be about the inky blackness was split by hundreds of searchlights which traced patterns all oyer the sky. Anti-aircraft shells bursting resulted in vivid flashes of light illuminating momentarily large areas. It was an invariable thrill to see a German machine picked up in the searchlights. First one would locate it, then others would focus on to it, and these beams would remain on the raider while the guns went into action against it. Then suddenly the guns would cease, and a Spitfire would be seen going into action against the enelny. The fight in the silver beams of searchlights, this Clydeside man described as a sight never to he forgotten. Another brilliant spectacle of night raiding was the dropping of flares. So brilliant were these that entire towns were completely illuminated, and were it not for the horror ensuing the spectacle would be one that most people would greatly appreciate. Unfortunately, no sooner had the flare done its job than the bombs started dropping. He referred to the rationing, and the difficulties that sometimes ensued in obtaining one’s full quota. But these difficulties, like the bombing, were accepted in an amazing spirit, behind which was the dominant thought: “ We shall not lose.” This man sent.on ahead by freighter to New Zealand the sheets ho had salvaged from the total wreck of his home. Not long after his arrival—the voyage out, incidentally, was unmarked by any untoward incident—he had word that the freighter had been sunk.