NAVAL BASES IN BRITAIN

Southland Times, Issue 24574, 24 October 1941, Page 5

NAVAL BASES IN BRITAIN

MONEYPROVIDED BY AMERICA ADMIRAL’S REVELATION (Rec. 7.35 p.m.) WASHINGTON, October 22. It is officially revealed that Admiral Harold K. Stark, chief of naval operations, testifying to the Senate sub-committee on behalf of the Lend-Lease Bill, said the Navy had allocated funds for materials and facilities for naval bases in the British Isles, with the British using their own funds for construction. He also stated that the Navy planned to use an additional 10,000,000 dollars for a British naval base in Iceland. Rear-Admiral Adolphus Andrews, formerly Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, at the commissioning ceremony of the destroyer Bristol, a sister ship of the Kearny, which was torpedoed in the Atlantic, said that often at such ceremonies the fond hope was expressed that a warship would never have to fire a hostile shot. “Today the fond hope becomes futile,” he said. “There is a grim business ahead. We must maintain the freedom of the seas. Always remember that a ship’s fate in battle may well depend on one man. That test may come very soon.” Official testimony on the Lend-Lease Bill disclosed that 325,000,000 dollars had been earmarked for 50 convoy escort ships. No details were released, but informed quarters express the opinion that most, if not all, will be assigned to Britain to guard Atlantic cargoes. DEMAND FOR ACTION American public men and the newspapers are demanding action following the torpedoing of the two United States ships. The executive committee of the “Fight for Freedom” Movement has adopted a resolution calling for some high, clear voice to raise itself above the “Tower of Babel that is Washington” and cry out and declare war on Nazi Germany. “Only Washington seems to be unaware that we are in a war to the death,” the resolution states. “The time has come to throw off all pretence. The real crisis over the national life has come.” Unless there are wholly unforeseen developments the repeal of all or most of the Neutrality Act, particularly the section prohibiting the entry of American vessels into the belligerent zones, seems a certainty. The spurt by the Republicans to assume leadership, under Mr Wendell L. Willkie’s proddings, of the movement for repeal of the entire Act is evidence that isolationism is dying. The Republican movement is beginning to assume the proportions of a national sweep and is proving almost embarrassing to the Administration forces, who fear that leadership for a new and vigorous resistance to Hitler may be taken from them. EVIDENCE OF UNITY

Both The New York Times and The New York Herald-Tribune hail the Republican action as evidence of national unity. The New York Times says: “The time for national unity has come. It is time to close our ranks, to be done with neutrality and to throw our full strength into the defence oi the Atlantic.”