Stimson Urges Action To Aid Britain

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 108, 8 May 1941, Page 7

Stimson Urges Action To Aid Britain

NAZIS WARNED United Press Association—Ey Electric Telegraph—Copyright. WASHINGTON, May 6. The Secretary for War, Mr Henry Stimson, in a nationwide broadcast to-night, advocated the use of the United States Navy to safeguard shipments of supplies to Britain. He warned Germany that the United States would not flinch, and that she would not permit these munitions to be sunk in the Atlantic. Mr Stimson said: "We have taken our place definitely behind the warring democracies against the aggressors. The world is facing a great crisis. All our efforts must be turned towards the defence of the nation's safety. “The men under the leadership of Hitler propose to establish a world order in which they will be masters and all other people slaves. This socalled new order, openly hostile to us, is steadily encircling the western world. Advance agents are busy in the southern republics building strategic airlines across vital portions of the continent, creeping towards Panama. Armed forces are threatening West Africa, looking for a jumping-off place from which it would be easy to reach the coast of Brazil. Propagandists are vigorously active here. They now arrogantly confront the world, including ourselves. The alternatives are abject surrender or uncompromising forceful resistance. “For more than 100 years, control of ‘.he Atlantic has been exercised by the 3ritish Fleet. This tradition was accepted by us as a dominant factor in our ocean defence, upon which our safety and mode of life depend. To-day the situation is gravely threatened. & Britain Falls “The British Isles have been a fortress against any despotic approach to our shores. If the British fell, the Fleet, if it survived, would not have an adequate base for continued operations. Britain’s great shipyards would pass into the hand of the aggressor nations, whose capacity would thus become seven times larger than ours. Under such conditions, our fleet would be unable to protect the Western Hemisphere from the overwhelming sea power then confronting it “We can successfully meet this most out our defences. Time is an essential factor.

“To-day, the wide-flung forces of the British Navy are threatened in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Those thinly-spread forces alone are securing us at the present time. Britain’s lifelines are threatened. The Nazi high-water mark is at hand. “We can successful meet this most dangerous threat. We have a naval instrument prepared and ready for such an emergency right now. This is within our power—to use that instrument, turn the tide of darkness back from the Atlantic, and thus gain means to preclude the Nazis forever from attaining their full purpose. “If our navy secures the sea for the delivery of munitions to Britain, it will render as great a service to our country and to the preservation of American freedom as in all its glorious history. Supplementing the efforts of the British Navy, it can secure all the oceans surrounding our continent and check the onward rise in the tide of Nazism until the defences of the democracies are completed. It can permanently confine the malign forces until the tide of freedom rises again.

“On tiie other hand, if our navy's assistance withheld until the power of the British Fleet and nation is broken, our powet of execution would shrink to impotence. If we allow the present strategic moment to pass, our navy merely becomes a secondary instead of a decisive winning power in the world conflict.

“Is it conceivable that the American people would allow this to happen? In the face of the Congressional provision of billions of dollars for munitions, shall we now flinch and permit these munitions to be sunk in the Atlantic? Our entire history does not show a precedent for such a supposition. The President has said that we must not allow the steps already taken to become ineffective.

“I do not minimise the danger. It is an occasion for grave seriousness, but not for gloom. I have studied the military potency of the Axis Powers, and I do not under-estimate their power. Provided we act with promptness and with a united spirit, I have full faith in the outcome. Unless we are ready to sacrifice, and if need be to die, for our conviction that the freedom of America must be saved, that freedom cannot be preserved.”