“INTO THE STORM”

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 February 1942, Page 5

“INTO THE STORM”

GRIM DETERMINATION NEEDED BROADCAST BY MR. CHURCHILL LONDON, February 15. “So far we have not failed. We will not fail now. Let us move steadily together into the storm, and through the storm.’’ With these words the Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill) concluded a broadcast address, during which he announced the fall of Singapore. “To-night I speak to you at Home, in Australia, and New Zealand, for whose safety we are straining every nerve, in India, Burma, to our gallant Allies, the Dutch and the Chinese, and the United States of America,’’ he said. “I speak to you under the shadow of a far-reaching defeat, a British and Imperial defeat. Singapore has fallen. All the Malay Peninsula has been over-run. This is one moment when we must draw heart from misfortune. Grim determination has brought us out of the jaws of death before, and we must meet these further , reverses with grim determination. We must learn that we are no longer alone. We are in the middle of a great company. Three-quarters of the human race are now moving with us. On our action depends the future of mankind.’’

Mr. Churchill said: “Nearly six months have passed since at the end of August I made a broadcast directly to my fellow countrymen. It is, therefore, worth while looking back over this half-year of our struggle for life —for that is what it has been and what it is—to see what has happened to our fortunes and prospects. At that time in August 1 had the pleasure ol meeting Mr. Roosevelt and drawing up with him a declaration of British and American policy which has become known to the world as the Atlantic Charter. We also settled a number of other things about the war, some of which have had an important influence on its course. “In those days we met on the terms of a hard-pressed combination seeking assistance from a great friend, who, however, was only a benevolent neutral. In those days the Germans seemed to be tearing the Russian armies to pieces and striding on with growing momentum to Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov, and even farther into the heart of Russia. It was thought a very daring assertion when the President declared that the Russian armies would hold out till the Winter. You may say that military men of all countries, friend, Joe, and neutral alike, were very doubtful whether this would come true. RESOURCES STRAINED. “As for us, our British resources were stretched to the utmost. We had already been for more than a whole year absolutely alone in the struggle with Hitler and Mussolini. We had to be ready to meet a German invasion of our own island. We had to defend Egypt, the Nile Valley, and the Suez Canal. Above all, we had to bring in food, raw materials, and finished munitions across the Atlantic in the teeth of attacks by German and Italian U-boats and aircraft. We have to do these. It seemed our duty in these August days to do everything in our power to help the Russian people meet the prodigious onslaught which had been launched against them. “It is little enough we have done for Russia considering all she has done to beat Hitler and for the common cause. We British had no means of providing effectively against the new war with Japan. Such was the outlook when I talked with Mr. Roosevelt in the middle of August on tne good ship Prince of Wales, now, alas, sunk beneath the waves. “It is true that our position in August, 1941, seemed vastly better then than it was a year earlier when France had just been beaten into the awful prostration in which she now lies, when we were almost entirely unarmed in our island and when it looked as if Egypt and all the Middle East would be conquered by the Italians, who still held Abyssinia and had newly driven us out of British Somali“Compared with those days in 1940, when all the world except ourselves thought we were down and out lor ever, the situation which the President and I surveyed in August, 1941, was considerably better. Still, when you looked at it bluntly and squarely, with the United States neutral and fiercely divided, with the Russian armies falling back with grievous losses, with German military power triumphant and unscathed, with the Japanese menace assuming an uglier shape each day, it certainly seemed a very bleak and anxious scene. “How do matters stand now? Taking it all in all, are our chances ol survival better or worse than in August, 1941? How is it with the British Empire or Commonwealth ol Nations/ Are we up or down? What has happened to the principles of freedom and decent civilisation for which we are fighting? Are they making headway or are they in greater peril? Let us take the rough with the smooth. Let us put the good and the bad side by side and let us try to see exactly where we are.

AMERICA’S ENTRY. “The first and greatest of the events is that the United States is now unitedly and wholeheartedly in the war with us. The other day I crossed the Atlantic again to see Mr. Roosevelt. This time we met not only as friends but as comrades standing side by side and shoulder to shoulder in a battle for dear life and dearer honour in a common cause and against a common foe. When I survey and compute the power of the United States and its vast resources and feel that now they are in it with us, with the British Commonwealth of Nations all to-j gether, however long it lasts, till death or victory, I cannot believe that theie | is any other fact in the whole world | which can compare with that. That is what I have dreamed of, aimed at, and worked for, and now it has come to pass. , . “But there is another fact in some ways more immediately effective. The Russian armies have not been defeated. They have not been torn to pieces. The ‘Russian peoples have not been conquered or destroyed. Leningrad and Moscow have not been taken. Russia’s armies are in the field. Thev are holding the line of the Urals or the line of the Volga. They are advancing victoriously, driving the foul invader from that native soil they have guarded so bravely and loved so well. More than that, for the first time they have broken the Hitler leg“fnstead of victories and abundant booty, which Hitler and his hordes gathered in the west, he has found in Russia so far only disaster and failure, the shame of unspeakable crimes, the slaughter or loss of vast numbers of German soldiers, and the icy wind that blows across the Russian snows. “Here, then, are two tremendous fundamental facts which will in the end dominate the world situation and make victory possible in a form never before possible. But there is another heavy and terrible side to the account which must be set in balance against these inestimable gains. Japan has plunged into the war and is ravaging the beautiful, fertile, prosperous. and densely populated lands of the Far East. It would never have been in the power of the British while fighting Germany and . Italy—nations long hardened and prepared for war—while fighting in the North Sea, in the

Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, to defend the Pacific and the Far East single-handed against the onslaught of the Japanese. We have only just been able to keep our heads above water at home. Only by a narrow margin have we brought in the food which keeps us alive and the supplies without which we cannot wage war. Only by so little have we held our own in the Nile Valley and the Middle East. The Mediterranean is closed and all our transports have to go round the Cape of Good Hope. Each ship is making only three voyages in a year. Not a ship, not an aeroplane, not a tank, or an anti-aircraft gun has stood idle. Everything we have has been deployed either against the enemy or awaiting his attack. “We are struggling hard in the Libyan desert where perhaps another serious battle will soon be fought. We have to provide for the safety and order of liberated Abyssinia, of conquered Eritrea, of Palestine, of liberated Syria, and redeemed Syria and our new ally Persia. A ceaseless stream of ships, men, and materials has flowed from this country for a year and a-half to build up and sustain our armies in the Middle East which guard these vast regions on. either side of the Nile barrier. We had to do our best to give substantial aid to Russia. We gave it in her darkest hour and we must not fail in our undertakings now. . “How then could we have provided for the safety of the Far East against the avalanche of fire and steel which has been launched against us?” asked Mr. Churchill. There has been one hope, and one hope only. That was if Japan entered the war, the United States would come in against her. For that reason he had been careful not to provoke Japan, and ignored her encroachments. JAPANESE “MADNESS.” Japan had struck the blow which brought the United States in against her. While he did not believe the war was in Japan’s best interests, it was obvious that she had been planning it for 20 years, while other countries were disarming. , in .„ When the history of 1942 and 1943 was written, Japan’s action would be described as “criminal madness. The chief deterrent to Japanese action was the American battle fleet, dominant in the Pacific, supplemented by such ships as "Britain could spare. By an act of violent treachery, done under the shadow of peaceful negotiations, this shield of sea power was struck down, but only for the time being. Into the gap rushed the invading Japanese. Nobody must under-rate the Japanese war machine, but the wonderful strength of the Chinese people must be set in the scales against the aggressors. For four and a-hall yeais they had given battle and theii huge resources were steadily being thrown against the enemy. “I must warn you, as I warned the House of Commons, that many misfortunes, severe losses, and months of anxiety lie before us,” continued Mr. Churchill. This would be hard to bear, but what had saved the British people in the Summer of 1940, and the subsequent raids of the Autumn and Winter, would bring them through the 01 The 'Russian people had stood together, without bickering . among themselves, or losing faith in then leaders, in their darkest hour, and the Empire must do the same. Speaking of the dangers ol disunity, Mr. Churchill said: “Whoever is guilty of that crime, or bringing it about, it would be better said of him that a millstone be hung round his neck, and that he be cast into the uttermost depths of the sea.”

AUSTRALIAN DISAPPOINTMENT. MR. CHURCHILL CRITICISED. SYDNEY, February 16. The Federal Ministers have expressed their disappointment at Mr. Churchill’s speech. The Ministers said that the speech was merely a defence of Mr. Churchill’s administration against the odium arising out of the fall of Singapore. The evening papers, in their editorials, have mainly directed their criticism against Mr. Churchill. The Sydney “Sun” says: “The fall of Singapore is the culmination of a series of disasters, which will intensify the anger of the Empire at the direction of the war.” The “Sun” adds: “There must be some indication, right now, that this tale of preventable defeats shall end, and some guarantee that any further enemy successes will not be contributed to by the indirection and blunders of our own statesmen and of military leaders.” The “Daily Mirror” describes the fall of Singapore as “a shattering defeat for the British Empire—a devastating phase in the Pacific war of strategic withdrawals and evacuations.” For that, it says, one man is responsible. If that man is not Mr. Churchill, then he is responsible for the men who have made them. He has refused to displace them. AMERICAN ATTITUDE. WASHINGTON, February 16. There is no tendency to condemn Mr. Churchill, though it is realised that his predictions as to the fate of Singapore were far more optimistic than the facts had justified. It is generally felt that it is useless to cast stones at Mr. Churchill unless there is someone to take his place. Thus, it is considered there should be a concentration on the United States shortcomings, which are admitted to be considerable.