FIRST RIG DEFEAT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20379, 16 October 1940, Page 9

FIRST RIG DEFEAT

CHECKING HITLER BATTLE FOR BRITAIN FAILURE IN THE AIR INVASION PLAN AWRY VIEW OF AMERICAN (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 2.10 p.m. RUGBY, Oct. 14. The importance of the “battle for Britain” as a setback for the German plans was emphasised by Major George Fielding Eliot, a United States air expert, broadcasting from Philadelphia when he said: “While the immediate attempt is now centred on the confused events in the Balkans peninsula the very fact that Germany is now proceeding in the scene of southeast Europe raises the question as to whether the battle for Britain is being abandoned by Germany—whether the issue is not a clear-cut victory for the British and particularly for the Royal Air Force. “The evidence seems to many minds quite clear that in this battle for Britain Hitler has at last met a major defeat. For the first time he has had to turn back from a venture upon which he had set forth with every prospect of success. For the first time he has made boasts and announced intentions which he has been unable to make good. “Naturally every effort will be made by the Germans to distract the attention of the world and the American people from this tremendous fact. The failure of the Germans to achieve air superiority over Britain has made the invasion of that island a hopeless project.

“The Axis Powers are now compelled to recast the whole plan of war and no man would not be bold enough to say. what the result will be. A long, war has been precisely the sort of war that neither Germany nor Italy was prepared to fight. As far as the war in the air is concerned the German mass production plan has failed.”