WILL TO WIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23770, 25 September 1940, Page 11

WILL TO WIN

CONFIDENT BRITAIN REMARKABLE SPIRIT ABROAD "Hitler continually threatens us with invasion, but 1 have not met anyone who is not confident he cannot succeed," writes a New Zealand electrical engineer in London to his mother at Awhitu Central, Waiuku. He adds: "There is a really remarkable spirit ahrbad in the land. The lackadaisical manner and carelessness about the future are gone, and everyone is filled with determination to beat the Germans at all costs.'' The writer is doing special work in the aircraft industry, aucl travels a good deal. In the factories, ho says, selfishness has disappeared or been submerged under the nation's need for "pianos, planes and still more planes, and the men are thinking more of the output than of what they are getting out of the immediate job." In country districts the inhabitants have banded themselves together, largely of their own free will, and arranged road barricades and tank traps. "The response to the call for a Homo Guard was terrific," ho continues, "and a constant look-out is kept throughout the country. There is no fear at all that the resistance of this country can break down through treachery, as lias been the shameful case on the Continent. And again, there are little things that men don't forget. I do not see the beauty of England without thinking that men would fight desperately to preserve it. and, when one hears stories of heartless brutality, one knows that men will fight with savage ferocity to put an end to it. "That is the spirit actuating this country to-day. Men and women of all classes, while making no fuss or noise about it, are grimly determined to defend their homes that mean so much to them, and to crush tlie devil who means so little to humanity. I don't think anything will break the spirit of the will to win in this country."