U.S. May Convoy War Supplies

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21957, 8 May 1941, Page 5

U.S. May Convoy War Supplies

War Secretary Advocates Immediate Adion

Britain Mu& Win In Atlantic

By Telegraph-—Press Association—Copyright (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 6. THE United States Secretary of War (Mr H. L. Stimson), in a nationwide broadcast, 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 would not permit these munitions to be sunk in the Atlantic.

“We have taken our place definitely behind the warring democracies against the aggressors,” he declared. “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 the masters and all other people the slaves. This so-called new order is openly hostile to us and is steadily encircling the Western World. Advance agents are busy in the southern republics building strategic air lines across vital portions of the continent and creeping towards Panama. Armed forces are threatening West Africa and looking for a jumping off place within easy reach of the Brazil coast. Propagandists are vigorously active here. They now arrogantly confront the world, including ourselves. The alternative is abject surrender or an uncompromising forceful resistance.

‘‘For more than 100 years the control of the Atlantic has been exercised by the British Fleet. This tradition has been accepted by us as a dominant factor in the ocean defence on which our safety and mode of life depends. “To-day the situation is gravely threatened. The British Isles have been a fortress against any despotic approach to our shores. If the British fall the fleet, If it survived, would not have an adequate base for continued ‘ operations. Britain's great shipyards would pass into the hands of the aggressor nations, thus becoming seven times larger than ours. Under such conditions our fleet would be Unable to protect the western hemisphere from the overwhelming sea power confronting it. We have only just begun to build out our defences, fime is an essential factor. Navy Ready For Emergency "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 life lines are threatened. The Nazi high-water mark in destroying shipping is at hand. We can successfully meet this most dangerous threat. We have a naval instrument prepared and ready for such an emergency right away. It is within our power to use that instrument to turn the tide of darkness back from the Atlantic, and thus gain a means to preclude the Nazis forever from attaining their fell purpose. "It is our navy which secures the sea for the delivery of munitions to

Britain. It will render as great a service to our country and 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 of the tide of Nazism until the defences of the democracies are completed, and permanently confine the malign forces until the tide of freedom rises again. Immediate Action Urged * “On the other hand, if our Navy’s assistance is withheld until the power of the British Fleet and nation are broken, its nower 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 Congressional provision of billions 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 gloom. I have studied the military potency of the Axis powers and I do not underestimate their power. Provided we act with promptness and a united spirtt, I have full faith in the outcome. Unless we are ready to sacrifice, and if need be, to die for the conviction that the freedom of America must be saved, that freedom cannot be preserved.” Colonel Knox told the House Naval Committee that it was critically important now for the Navy to have a landing force ready to operate. Senator Claude Pepper, in a speech prepared for delivery in the Senate, demanded that the United States should "get tough” and occupy, with Britain, such strategic points as Dakar, the Azores, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, Greenland, Iceland, and Singapore, also points in the Far East to “shut up the Japanese navy in its ow.i lair.” "A few American pilots in a few first-class American bombing aeroplanes can make a shambles of Tokio,” he declared. Senator Pepper advocated that the United States should abandon all neutrality frills and send its ships wherever International law permits. If Axis submarines attempt interference, the United States should "blow them from the water as fast as we can.” Special Meeting Of "War Cabinet” President Roosevelt has summoned a special meeting of his “War Cabinet,” consisting of the Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull), the Secretary of the

Navy (Colonel Frank Knox), the Secretary of the Army (Mr H. L. Stimson), and the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr Henry Morgenthau) to act on his request for greatly increased bomber production to give the democracies command of the air. The meeting was also attended by the Chief of Staff (General George Marshall), the Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral H. R. Stark), and the Chief of the United States Army Air Corps (Major-General Henry H. Arnold), who has Just returned from London with a report of Britain’s aerial needs, and Mr Harry Hopkins, who was Mr Roosevelt’s personal representative in Britain. Informed circles i- Washington stated that the rapid reinforcement of the Royal Air Force for the “all out” bombing of Germany is the objective of Mr Roosevelt’s emergei cy order to speed up the production of long-range bombers, the eventual goal of which is reported to be 500 a month. An Isolationist effort to prevent the transfer to Britain of Axis ships seized at American ports was defeated by 161 votes to 131. It is authoritatively learned that the United States has halted all exports to Russia of machinery and equipment useful to defence production. Thlr policy was adopted in spite of strenuous Soviet diplomatic efforts to obtain exports permits. Miss Dorothy Thompson, the celebrated U.S. commentator, declared that President Roosevelt now faces the greatest decision any man had to make for his fellowmen.