HON W. CHURCHILL

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1940, Page 2

HON W. CHURCHILL

FURTHER PARTICULARS

OF SPEECH

(Per British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, September 11

Continuing his speech, Mr Churchill said for Hitler to try to invade this country without having secured mastery in the air,, would be a very hazardous undertaking. Nevertheless, all his preparations for an invasion on a great scale are steadily going forward. Several hundred self-propelled barges are moving down the coasts of Europe Horn German and Dutch harbours, to ports in northern France, from Dunkirk to Brest, and beyond Brest to French harbours in the Bay of Biscay. Besides this, a convoy of merchant ships in tens and dozens are being moved through the Straits of Dover into the Channel, dodging along from port to port under the protection of the new batteries the Germans have built on the French coast. There art' now considerable gatherings of shipping in German, Dutch, Belgian, and French harbours, all the way from Hamburg to Brest. Finally, there are some preparations made for ships to carry an invading force from Norwegian harbours. Behind these clusters oi ships or barges, there stand very large numbers of German troops, awaiting the order to set out on the very dangerous and uncertain voyage across the seas. We cannot tell when they will try to come. We cannot be sure that they will try at all, but no one should blind: himself to the fact that a heavy full-scale invasion of this island is being prepared, with all the usual German thoroughness and method, and that it may be launched at any time now upon England, upon Scotland, upon Ireland, or upon all three. If this invasion is going to be tried, at all, it does not seem that it can long he delayed, as the weather may break at any time. Besides this, it is difficult for the enemy to keep these gatherings of ships waiting about indefinitely, while they are bombed every night bvi our bombers, and are very often shelled by our ’ warships, •which are waiting for them outside. Therefore, we must regard the next week or so as very important weeks in our history. They rank with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel and Drake was finishing his game of bowls, or when Nelson stood between us and Nanol(oh’s grande armec at Boulogne. We read about all this in the history books, but what is happening now is on a far-greater scale, and of far-more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilisation, than those brave old days. .Every man and woman ..will, therefore, prenare himself ito do his or her duty, whatever it may he. with-special r pride--and, care. Our fleets and flotillas are , very powerful and numerous;, our Air Force is at the highest strength .it has ever-reached• and it is conscious of its proved superiority, not indeed, in numbers, but in men and machines. ■■ A

"Our shores are well fortified and strongly manned, and behind them, ready to attack the invaders, we have ,a far larger and better equipped.mobjle army than we have ever had before. Besides this, • we have more/'.; than 1,500,000 men of the Home Guard, who' are just as much soldiers- of the regu-lar-\<irmy in status as the Grenadier Guards,, and who are- determined to fight for every inch of ground in every village and in-every street. : ■ ■'■•■"lt is with-devout but sure confidence that I say: ‘Let God Defend The Right.’ ‘These cruel, wanton, and indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, part of Hitler’s invasion plans. He hopes that, by killing large numbers of civilians, woman and children, he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty, imperial city, and make them.a burden of anxiety to the Government, and thus distract our attention unduly from the ferocious onslaught lie is preparing. “Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre o f Londoners, whose forebears played a leading part in establishing Parliamentary institutions, and who have been bred to value freedom far above their lives. This wicked man, the repository and embodiment, of many forms of soul-destroying hatred, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame, has now resolved to try to break our famous island race, by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the confiagratiiMi he has caused in London have been removed. He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady, consuming flame, until the last vestiges of t.vrannhave been burut out of Europe, and until the Old World and the New can join hands t-o rebuild the temples of man’s freedom and man’s honour, upon foundations which will not soon Or easily bo overthrown. “This is the time for everyone to stand together and. hold firm. ns theare doing. I express my admiration for the exemplary manner in which all the A.R.P. services in London are being discharged, especially by the F'ire. Brigade, whose work lias been so heavy and also dangerous. AH the world that is still free marvels at the composure and fortitude with which the citizens of London are facing and surmounting the great ordeal to whk'h they are being subjected, the end or soyoritv of which cannot yet he foreseen. It is a message of good cheer to our fighting forces on the sens, in +ho air. and in our waiting armies in all their posts and stations, that wo are a people, who will not flinch or wenrv of the hard and protracted though it will he. hut that we shall rathe?- draw from the heart of suffering itself, means of inspiration and survival, and of victory won not.