WAR SITUATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 17 February 1942, Page 5

WAR SITUATION

MR CHURCHILL’S SURVEY APPEAL FOR UNITY WARNING OF HARDSHIP AHEAD Rugby. Feb. 15. j A strong appeal for unity was made! ( by the Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, j jin a world-wide broadcast. He said:— j ] ; “We are struggling hard in the f j Libyan desert, where perhaps another j . • ! serious battle will soon be fought. We; ( . have to provide for the safety andj j j order of liberated Abyssina, of con- 1 , I quered Eritrea, of Palestine, of liber- ( ! a ted Syria and redeemed Syria, and j « our new ally. Persia. A ceaseless' ’ stream of ships, mec and materials; flowed from this country for a year i j and a half to build up and sustain our j ; armies in the Middle East which j ' • guard these vast regions qn 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. 1 “How then in this posture, gripped, and held and battered as we are, could J we have provided for the safety of the. Far East? Always this thought over ( hung our minds.” There was, however, one hope; that; * if Japan entered the war the United j States would came in on our side,' thus fur more than repairing the; balance, Mr Churchill continued. He! said that he had been most careful for many months not to give any provocation to the Japanese, and to put up with Japanese encroachments, dangerous though they were, so that as f>r a.- possible we should not find ourselves alone. He could not be sure then that tnat policy would succeed, but it had now come to pass. The Prime Minister went on: “1 shall frankly state to you that I did not believe it was in the interests of Japan to burst into war both upon the British Empire and upon the United States. “To-night the Japanese are triumphant, and we are hard pressed; but I am ' sure that even in this dark hour criminal madness will be the verdict which . history will pronounce upon Ihe * authors of Japanese aggression after ' the events of 1942 and 1943 have been inscribed on its sombre pages.” Mr Churchill emphasised the im- ‘ mense deterrment of the American battle fleets in the Pacific, combined with 1 other forces confronting Japanese ag- f gression, but went on to say that by ‘ a surprise act long calculated and prepared for, and covered by the cloak of negotiation, the shield of sea power which had protected the fair lands and islands of the Pacific Ocean had been for the time being, and only for the time being, dashed to the ground. Through the gap rushed the invading < armies of Japan, a country of nearly 80,000,000 with a large output of mod- c ern weapons, whose war-lords had been i planning for the day, perhaps for 20 ’ years, while all the good people on c both sides of the Atlantic had been i ' prating about peace and cutting down i each other’s navies to set a good i example. £ The overthrow for a while of Bri- j tish and American sea power in the l ’ Pacific was like the break of some L mighty dam, carrying ruin and de- i , vastation on its foam. No one must i [ underrate any more the capacity and ] . efficiency of the Japanese war machine, j either in the air or upon the sea, or 1 • man to man. < The Japanese had already proved « themselves to be formidable, and he 1 ; was sorry to say, barbarous. It had i ■ been proved a hundred times over that. ; I even had we been much better pre- 1 i pared, we could not have stood up to : ‘ Japan alone while we also faced Ger- I • many and Italy. Something else had ; been proved, and this should be a com- 1 ■ fort—we could now properly assess the < • strength of the Chinese people under General Chiang Kai-shek, who single- : banded had fought the hideous aggres- I sor for four and a half years and left 1 h:m baffled and dismayed. J MISFORTUNES AHEAD Mr Churchill asked his listeners not to underrate the power of the men-; ace to their native soil, and not to undervalue the gigantic and overwhelming forces which now stood in ( line with us in the world struggle for freedom. He gave us a warning that many misfortunes, severe losses, and gnawing anxieties lay ahead. To people . in Britain they might seem to be hard- 1 e> to bear than when the savage Hun was shattering British cities, but the 1 same quality which had brought us . out of the awful jeopardy of the sum- * 1 mer of 1940 and through the long autumn and winter bombardments from the air would bring us through this new ordeal, though it must be more costly and certainly would be „ longer. t “One fault, one crime, and one crime only, can rob the united nations and the British people of the victory upon which their life and honour depend— e a weakening of our purpose, and there c fore our unity,” said Mr Churchill. s “That is the mortal .crime. Whoever ' i.~ guilty of that crime or bringing it f , about in others, let it be said of him c , that it were better for him if a mill- r , stone were hanged about his neck and c . he were cast into the sea.” He went on to say that whdn Russia ; was in dire peril, when a large pro- - portion of her munition factories lay : and were still lying in German hands. < and the foreign Ambassadors were ! ordered out of Moscow, the Russian j people did not seem to be breaking j among themselves. They did not lose ' ■ courage in their leaders, and they did ' c 1 not try to break their Government. : Hitler expected to find quislings and . fifth columnists; he looked for them. * ; but he found none. ' The fact remained that Russia, given blows which the enemy intended to be mortal and which other people j; also thought mortal, had preserved her j national unity and struck back, j The English-speaking world had a f j free Parliament and a free Press, and * j it was the dulj r of all to see. as the! ~ House of Commons and the House of! ! I.ords had done, that the national' * j executive Government in lime of war ; had a solid foundation on which to j C stand and on which to act. Mr Churchill said that in addition i . to other countries he was speaking to i Australia and New Zealand, forj* 3 whose safety we will strain every 1 1 FAR REACHING DEFEAT c He said: “I speak to you all under ij ; the shadow of a heavy and farreaching military defeat. It is a Brit— j c ish and Imperial defeat. Singapore has fallen. All the Malay Peninsula j has been overrun. Other dangers: gather about us there, and none of the j ! dangers which we have hitherto j . faced successfully at home and in the 1 j East are in any way diminished. : “It is therefore one of these mo- c ments when the British nation can ‘ ! show its quality and its genius. This I . is one of those moments when we can * draw from the heart of misfortune : I the vital impulses of victory. Here is; ( the moment to display that calm and, , . j poise in combination with the grim de-j . ‘j termination which not so long ago , i j brought us out of the very jaws of! < rocoti,. , • Here is another occasion to show, I J a* so often in our long story, that we J i

can meet reverses with dignity and with renewed accessions of strength. “We must remember we are no longer alone. We are in the midst of a great company. Three-quarters of the human race are now moving with “The whole future of mankind may depend on our action and upon our conduct. So far we have not failed. Let us move forward steadfastly together inlu the storm and through the storm.”—B.O.W. DISAPPOINTMENT IN CANBERRA Canberra. Feb. lb. Federal Ministers expressed disappointment at Mr Churchill’s speech, which they said was merely a defence of his administration agaist the odium arising out of the fall of Singapore.— P.A.