Five Dramatic Sundays
pp. 5-6 · Read in the full issue
A War Survey
BY
R. W. Robson.
F HAVE a 10-year-old radio receiver.
A My family insist that I shall get rid of it—it is out-moded, and grim, and no household ornament. But I cling to that set. Leaning atop of it, early and late, over three years, I have ,watched history take shape, seen European civilisation go right to the brink of the abyss, and yet be saved.
There, I heard the voice of Britain, standing alone amid the wreckage of the world that was created at Versailles:— COME THEN . . , LET US TO THE TASK, TO THE BATTLE AND THE TOIL, EACH TO OUR PART, EACH TO OUR STATION.
FILL THE ARMIES, RULE THE AIR, POUR
Out The Munitions, Strangle The
U-Boats, Build The Ships And
Honour The Brave.
Let Us Go Forward Together In
All Parts Of The Empire.
THERE IS NOT A WEEK, NOR A DAY,
Nor An Hour To Be Lost.
There, at that receiving set, on five widely-separated Sundays, I heard news announcements which carried us down to despair, and brought us back to the heights of victory and hope.
Sunday, September 3, 1939.
IT is nine o’clock. All day, we have been hanging over the radio, waiting for the dread announcement, hoping that even yet there may be a last-minute
settlement. And then, direct from Lon don, the tired, shaken voice of dis illusioned Prime Minister Chamberlain: — “The Nazis, breaking their pledged word, and in cynical disregard of all promises given to Britain and France, have invaded Poland. Britain has declared war upon Germany.”
We who had followed international affairs for 25 years knew that terrible things were ahead —but few guessed that this was the most fateful day in the history of European civilisation. We believed that British naval power, French military might, the Maginot Line, would take care of Germany. But most of us knew that enormous sociological forces were stirring—we suspected that man kind was entering a new era. But we were confident enough. We expected the old democratic system to continue —with modifications.
Sunday, June 16, 1940.
Every message that came this day was black with disaster. France was disintegrating before our eyes. France had rejected Prime Minister Churchill’s appeal to fight on, on the sea and from North Africa. France was preparing for capitulation to the triumphant Nazis.
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Den mark, Holland, Belgium and now France, were over-run and prostrate. Russia was aloof. Italy, mouth a-slaver at the pros pect of spoils, had rushed eagerly to
Germany’s side, to declare war upon Britain and France. America was “iso lationist” Japan, scenting new terri tories was stirring eagerly.
Britain now was without an ally, abso lutely alone. Her Army consisted mostly of the disorganised, unequipped men from Dunkirk; her Air Force, while magnifi cent, was ten times outnumbered by Hit ler’s Luftwaffe.
This was the darkest moment of the war—probably the most fearful day in the long history of the British Empire.
It seemed that only a miracle could save us.
Sunday, June 22, 1941.
FOUR o’clock on a dismal afternoon.
Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, out of the radio, came the announce ment:— “At dawn this morning - , without any warning or declaration of war, Hitler’s armies marched against Russia. The whole of the frontiers between Gei many and Russia are ablaze.”
It seemed too good to be true. We had come through a year in which we had seemed to survive by a series of miracles. By their supreme heroism and self-sacrifice, the outnumbered young airmen of Britain had kept the Huns out of the British Isles. Somehow, we had dealt blow after blow upon the squeal ing Italians in North Africa. Somehow, the creeping, treacherous Japanese had been persuaded to stay in Indo-China and not advance into Netherlands Indies, upon which their gaze was greedily fixed. Incredibly, the war-hating people of the United States were swinging to a
realisation that, if Britain was lost, everything that Americans hold dear could be lost.
But Britain still was alone. Germany scorned our new military formations.
German armies had smashed us in Greece and Crete and Libya; an incred ible concentration of military power had been thrown against Russia. The chorus of the moaners rose high over us all: “The Russians cannot stand up against this blitz for three weeks. They will never co-operate with us, anyway—they hate us. As soon as the Russians col lapse, the Japanese will spring upon us.
The Americans will not fight.”
I remember only one reassuring voice —that of George Bernard Shaw, octo genarian: “Russia will not be broken.
Russia will surprise the world. You can put your faith in the Soviet.”
Sunday, December 7, 1941.
BECAUSE the international date-line lies between Australia and Hawaii, it was Monday, December 8, with us, when the incredible thing came to us out of the air:— “With calculated treachery, equalled only by that of Hitler himself, the Japanese this morning hurled their forces, without warning or declaration of war. upon the Americans in Pearl Harbour and Philippines, and the British in Hongkong and Malaya.”
And thus, with one foul blow, Japan changed possibilities and probabilities into certainties. From that moment, the defeat of the Axis was certain.
The unconquerable spirit and enormous naval power of Britain; Russia’s stark courage and amazing powers of endur ance; the incalculable man-power of Rus sia and of unbeatable China; the organis ing genius, energy and endless industrial strength of 130,000,000 Americans — sud denly all these things, hitherto not linked, were welded together to form the most powerful combination in the history of the world, the United Nations. Only one spark had been needed to start the amalgam; the spar'k was supplied by Pearl Harbour. The fire which, in a few hours, created the United Nations, was the blazing anger of the United States.
Britain and Russia were no longer alone.
Sunday, November 8, 1942.
WE hung around the old radio, listen ing with grim satisfaction to a new kind of story—the story for which our hearts had hungered for three weary years—a ball-to-ball description of the destruction of a mighty German army by- British soldiers and British equipment, with superior British leadership.
Rommel’s Huns running in North Africa, Hitler’s Huns faltering and fail ing before the unbreakable Russians, Japanese attacks failing under American shells and bombs in the Solomons, Aus tralians driving the Japanese back across New Guinea, air-bome American troops appearing dramatically in North-eastern Papua—and, then, a radio voice, vibrant with the excitement of world-shaking news:— “It has just been announced that powerful American forces, supported
and protected by the British Navy and Air Force, are now landing at numer ous places on the Atlantic and Medi terranean seaboards of Morocco and Algeria. The United Nations intend to occupy all of French North Africa, with a view to taking complete possession of the Mediterranean and opening a second front against the Nazis in Europe.”
And thus was marked the most dramatic and exciting 24 hours in the history of radio. With our ears upon every capital in the world, we were spec tators (or should the word he auditors?) of the actual turning-point of the great est war in the history of the world.
We heard the steady voice of “London Calling”—brave London, that never failed us, even in the blackest days and the worst blitz of 1940 —London telling us now of victory as calmly as when we were told of apparently irretrievable defeat.
We heard President Roosevelt’s stir ring appeal to France to come in now beside the United Nations, before it was too late. We heard Amei'ica’s radio bom bardment of Frenchmen throughout the world. We heard a new note — hope, exultation —in the voices of battered, weary but unconquerable Russia: The second front, at last, thank God!
And we heard the wild screeches of the egocentric Hitler as he slang whanged President Roosevelt, and threat ened the British Isles with “unbelievable horrors, the product of German inventive genius.” Gas? We heard the gentle Jap —he whose calculated treachery is writ ten imperishably at Pearl Harbour, he who cuts the throats of helpless Islands missionaries—tell an incredulous world that America’s occupation of North Africa had been “most ungentlemanly”!
THIS strange, mad Hitler! Do you remember, after the collapse of France, what Goering said of him?
“A great, natural military genius who must become the ruler of the world” —or something like that. He is a genius, a queer freak of a man—only such an acci dent in human shape could have created Nazi Germany and come within an ace of destroying civilisation.
But only the greatest fool in history could have made the blunders he made: His failure to destroy Britain in July and August, 1940, when Britain was helpless and alone; his untimely attack upon Russia, thus irrevocably tying Germany’s hands, and giving Britain a priceless opportunity to re-arm; his blindness in thrusting Japan against the United States, and thus bringing war-fury and inflexible unity of purpose to. the world’s most powerful and most determinedly peaceful nation.
Eventually—perhaps very soon, now— Germany will awaken to the fact that in acclaiming Anton Schnickelgruber, alias Adolf Hitler, as her ‘‘beloved Fuhrer” she has been cherishing the world’s prize goat. And, then, the deluge!
AMERICAN occupation of French
North Africa, simultaneously with Britain’s destruction of the Axis armies in Libya—what a plan! It
clicks together!
It makes winter campaigning possible. (Hitler thought that the British and Americans could not strike
against him before next May.) It closes the north-west African ports against the Axis submarines in the southern Atlantic. It makes possible complete domination of the Mediter ranean by the Allies, thus re-opening the Mediterranean-Suez route to Indian and Australian shipping. It makes the conquest of Italy prac ticable and possible.
It opens the way for an advance against Germany from the Mediter ranean, to be co-ordinated with a possible advance from the west, in the Allies’ own good time. It forces Hitler to desperate measures—either to withdraw much of his strength from Russia, or to attack the Middle East British through the Black Sea region.
It gives Russia time to prepare for that final, mighty blow which Stalin believes will overwhelm Germany in 1943.
But this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It probably is the turning-point of the war. It is inconceivable that Hitler will abandon his crazy, but almost fulfilled, dream of world conquest be fore he makes attacks of incalculable ferocity and cruelty. He probably will (1) assemble his air forces for fearful blitzes against Britain; (2) completely occupy France; (3) occupy Italy, in an attempt to prop up the now stag gering Mussolini and keep the Allies out of that country; (4) call upon Japan for terrific diversionary attacks against the United Nations in the Pacific and Far East—and especially against Russia, in Siberia.
Mighty forces are moving in Europe for the destruction of Hitler and Hitlerism. And the mightiest of all are the forces of Nature. Europe, entering the winter, is threatened with a terrible famine. Out of famine come disease, demoralisation, revolu tion. Perhaps the United Nations can control and shape events for victory.
But can they control that which will
follow victory?
WHAT of Japan—this nation which now holds a new Empire, all the fabled wealth of the Indies, but which sees the forces which her greed and treachery aroused mounting daily for her own destruction?
One can only guess at the global strategy of the United Nations. It may be that the plan is to first destroy Hitlerism, and then attend to the Pacific. But we may be perfectly sure that Japan’s turn will come.
It may be that the war will end in Europe long before it ends in Asia and the Pacific. Germany will abandon Japan in the Far East just as readily as Rommel abandoned the Italian divisions in Egypt. The war-lords of Tokio probably will want the common people of Japan—poor, untaught, fanatical robots—to fight on to the end, to accept extermination, in the hope that Japan will be allowed to retain some of the territories which she so greedily snatched at, and for which she sold her international soul.