CHURCHILL REVIEW

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 May 1945, Page 5

CHURCHILL REVIEW

FIVE YEARS’ DIFFICULTIES

CRITICISM OF DE VALERA

FULL EFFORT AGAINST JAPAN

RUGBY, May 13. The Prime Minister’s broadcast qneech to-night for the most part recounted the events of the last five years from the time he formed the National Government to the end of the war in Europe. He recalled that the Germans overran all Europe, and referred to July, August and September, 1940, when 40 or 50 squadrons of fighter aircraft brake the teeth of German aircraft at .odds of seven or eight to one against the British. “Never before m the history of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so tew, ne said, repeating the words he used a the end of that great battle. Referring to 1941, the Premier said' “We had only the north-west approaches between Ulster and Scotland, through which to bring m the means of life and send out the forced of war. Owing to the action of Mr. de Valera, so much at vanance with the temper and instinct of thousands of Southern Irishmen who hastened to the battlefiont to prove their ancient valour, the approaches which the southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by hostileaircraft and U-boats. Phis was indeed a deadly moment °ur life and if it had not been for the loyalty and friendliness of Northern Ireland we should have had to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera or perish forever from the earth. However, with a restraint and poise to which I venture to say history will find few parallels, we never laid violent hands upon them, which at times would have been quite easy, and we left the de Valera Government to frolic with the German and later the Japanese representatives to their hearts’ content. When I think of these days, I think also of Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde, VC D S 0., Lance-Corporal Kennely. V.C., Captain Fegen, V.C., and ci of others I could still recall, and all hatred by Britain for the Irish race dies in my heart. I can only pray that in the years which I shall not see, the shame will be forgotten and peace will . endure, and the peoples of the British Isles will walk together in mutual comprehension and forgiveness.” TRIBUTE TO SEAMEN.

Mr. Churchill paid a tribute to the devotion of the merchant seamen and to the vast inventive, aH-em-hrarins? and, in the end, aii con trolling power of the Royal Navy, with its ever more potent new ally, the Air Force. “We were able to breathe We were able to live. We were able to strike,” Mr Churchill said. Great anxiety was felt by Mi. Roosevelt, and indeed by thinking men throughout the United States, at what would happen to us in the early part of 1941. The President felt that the destruction of Britain would not only be a fearful event in itself, but would expose to mortal danger the vast and as yet largely unarmed potentialities and future destiny of the United States. “But we were in a ■fairly tough mood by then and felt very much better about oui selves than in the months immediately after the collapse of France. Our Dunkirk army and field force troops m Britain, almost 1,000,000 strong, were nearly all equipped or re-equipped. We had ferried over the Atlantic 1 000,000 rifles and 1000 cannon from the United States, with all thenammunition, since the previous June. In our munition works, which weie becoming very powerful, men and women had worked at their machines till they dropped senseless with fatigue. Nearly 1,000,000 men were armed, at least with rifles, and .■■lso with the spirit of ‘conquer or £ii £> ’ ” The Prime Minister recalled how in 1941 we sacrificed our conquests in North Africa in order to stand by Greece, repressed the German-insti-tuted rising in Iraq, defended Palestine, and, with the assistance of the Free French, cleared Syria and Lebanon of Vichyites. Then came the time when the tyrant Hitler made the ghastly mistake which altered the whole balance of the struggle. “On June 22, 1941, Hitler, master as he thought himself of all Europe, and indeed, possibly of the whole world, treacherously, without warning and without the slightest provocation, hurled himself on Russia, and came face to lace with. Stalin and numberless millions of Russian people. Then at the end of the yeai Japan struck her felon blow at the United Stales at Pearl Harbour, and at the same time attacked us in Malaya and Singapore. Thereupon Hitler and Mussolini declared war on the Republic of the United States. Years have passed since then. Indeed every year seems to me almost a decade. But never since the United States entered the war have I had the slightest doubt or fear but that we should be saved, and that we had only to do our duty to win.

GREAT PERIL AVERTED.

After referring to the landings in France and the meeting of the West- , era and Eastern Allies in middle, Germany, Mr. Churchill said: 11, happened that in three days we re-, ceived news of the unlamented departures of Mussolini and Hitler, and m three days surrenders were made, to Alexander and Montgomery of, over 2,500,000 of this terrible, warlike German army.” Mr. ChurchiL paid a tribute to the power and exertions of the United States toices, 3 500 000 of whom are now deployed on victorious battlegrounds in Europe. More than 90,000 had been killed. . J , I The Prime Minister went on: For. our part, British and Canadians, we have had in action about one-third as many men as the Americans, but we have taken our full share of the fighting as a whole. Our losses show we have played our part, and our Navy has borne incomparably the severe strain in the Atlantic Ocean, in narrow seas, and the Arctic convovs to Russia. I mention these facts only to show we have our place in these superb deathless annals of the English-speaking world. Never did the forces of two nations ’ fmht together side by side and intermingle with so much unity, comradeship and brotherhood as have those who served under Eisenhower, Alexander, Montgomery, Bradley or Mark Clark.” Mr. Churchill then dealt with one danger the collapse of Germany saved Britain—from the continued increasingly heavy attacks of flying bombs and rockets. But it was only when our armies cleaned up the coast and overran all the points of discharge, and when the Americans captured vast stores or rockets of all kinds near Leipzig, and when preparations being made on the coasts of France and Holland could be examined in detail, that we knew how grave was the peril, not only from rockets and flying bombs, but also multiple long-range artillery which was being prepared against London for the Autumn.' Only just in time did the Allied armies blast the viper in his nest. Otherwise Autumn, 1944, might well have seen

London as shattered as Berlin. “Looking to the future,” the Prime Minister said, “I wish I could tell you to-night that all our toils and troubles were over. Then, indeed, I could end my reign, cease fire happily, and if you thought you had had enough of me and that I ought to be put out to graze, I assure you I would take it with the best grace.” “But on the contrary I must warn you as I did when I began this five years’ task —and no one knew that it would last so long—that there is

STILL A LOT TO DO,

and that you must be prepared for further sacrifices, to great causes, if you are not to fall back into the rut of inertia, confusion of aim and craven fear of being great. On the Continent of Europe we have yet to make sure that the simple honourable purposes for which we entered the war are not brushed aside, or overlooked in the months following our success and that the words, freedom, democracy and liberation are not distorted from their true meaning as we have understood them. There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites for their crimes, if law and justice did not rule, and if totalitarian or police governments were to take the place of German invaders. We seek nothing for ourselves. But we must make sure that those causes which we fought for find recognition at the peace table in facts as well as words, and above all we must labour that world organisation which the United Nations are creating at San Francisco does not become an idle name, does not become a shield lor the strong and a mockery for the weak. It is the victors who must search their hearts in their glowing hours, and be worthy by their nobility of the immense forces they wield. , , “Beyond all lies Japan, harassed and falling but still, a people of a hundred millions for whose war lords death has few terrors. I cannot tell you how much time or what exertions will be required to compel them to make amends for their odious treachery and cruelty. We have received horrible injuries from them ourselves, and we are bound by ties of honour and fraternal loyalty to the United States to fight this great war at the other end of the world at their side without flagging or failing. We must remembers that Australia, New Zealand and Canada are all menaced by this evil terror. They came to our aid in our dark times, and we must not leave unfinished any task which concerns their safety. “I told you hard things at the beginning of these last five years. You did not shrink and I should be unworthy of your confidence and generosity if I did not still cry forward, unflinching, unswerving, and indomitable till the whole task is done, and the whole world is safe and clean.