HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1943-09-02, Page 6TEE S1AFORTH NEWS
Dunkirk and After
By Arthur Bryant in "Britain."
The days between May 29 and
June 8, 1940,: were the turtling
point in the history of mankind. In
those days the' British Navy, with
the help of the 'Royal ..kir Force,
saved a British Army—at that' mo-
ment virtually the only British Army
—from what seemed certain destruc-
tion.
Dunkirk Was a kind of British
victory, and as such has tended to
obscure events that preceded it. But
the occasion of Dunkirk itself was
the greatest military disaster in Bri-
tish history,
An array of more than one-quar-
ter of a million men with practically
the entire available field equipment
of Britain, was surrounded and
penned in with no apparent choice
but immediate surrender or death.
It marked the apparent collapse
of all values which an easy-going
parliamentary democracy had stood
for.
In that moment the miracle oc-
eurrecl. It was like a sudden rainbow
at the climax of some terrible storm.
In the midst of it long columns of
leen, tormented, utterly weary and
in deadly peril were seen going down
unperturbed to the water's edge.
Their only way of escape was a
single port blasted by enemy bombs
and shells and a line of exposed
beaches with shelving shores from
which an evacuation would have
been impossible in anything but
dead calm.
Those men stood there in long pa-
tient queues, as though waiting for
the last bug home, or sheltered in
impromptu holes evacuated in the
sand, while overhead dive -bombers
roared and screamed and fantastic
air battles were fought in the midst
of immense pillars of drifting smoke
and fountains of water. They waited
with a kind of dogged faith, and pre-
sently their faith was justified.
Guarded by lean, crowded destroyers
hundreds of little boats came out of
England and bore them away.
For five clays and nights the mir-
acle continued until no one remained
on the beaches at all, save the dead.
The living came back out of the de-
lirium of modern war to the quiet
and ordinariness of England; to the
near railway carriages and the smil-
ing policemen and girls holding up
cups of tea. And there they lived to
fight another day on the sands of El
Alamein and in Tunisia and Sicily.
The name of one general who cov-
ered their retreat against the victor-
ious Teuton hordes and who was
himself among the last to embark,
was Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander.
Among those who took part in the
evacuation was another general by
the name of Sir Bernard L. Mont-
gomery.
On June 17, while every road to
the southwest of Europe was block-
aded with refugees and the panzer
surge swept unresisted into the
Rhone Valley, the men of Bordeaux,
after Premier Reynaud's last vain,
despairing appeal, made their abject
surrender. In the eyes of the over-
whelming majority of mankind at
that moment there seemed nothing
else that they could possibly do.
The world prepared itself for the
inevitable.
But the voice which came out of
England at that moment was neither
repentant nor submissive. It was the
voice of a man angry, defiant, utter-
ly resolved—or rather of forty-seven
millions looking in a single direction,
and that direction seawards, and in-
toning in their hearts words which
one man spoke for all: "We shall de-
fend our island whatever the cost
may be. We shall fight on the
beaches; we shall fight on the land-
inggrounds; we shall fight in the
fields and in the streets; we shall
fight in the hills and we shall never
surrender,"
It sounded to the world the wild-
est extravagance, for outside the
British Empire and the White House
M Washington there was scarcely
anybody to whom such words at
such an hour made sense. The Her-
renfolk, who were far too busy
counting their gains and herding
their prisoners into pens to listen,
announced them to be the drivel of a
broken-down drunkard in the pay of
impotent money -lenders, and they
contemptuously offered the English-
peace
nglishpeace in a global concentration
camp.
Mr. Churchill and the British
people did not hear them. With a
minimum of fuss and chatter and a
Maximum of speed they were girding
on their armor. They knew that Hit-
ler would do his worst. But they were
not thinking about what he could do
but about what they could do,
No one who lived in Tngland
through that wonderful summer of
1940 is ever likely to forget it, The
light that beat down on her green
meadows, shining with emerald love-
liness, was scarcely of this world,
Tbe streets of her cities, soon to be
torn and shattered, were bathed in
the calm serene 'sunshine; and in the
forge and factory, on the form midi
in the. mine her people with a Rem,
nnl'esthlg yet (inlet intensity worked
as they hail never worked before in
history.'
Inn every village primeval earts
that might have barred the way of
Napoleon's grand army, wreathed
with farmyard wire were placed
across the roads, Signposts were ta-
ken down and trenchesand gun em-
placements were dug in the fields.
In the city and in the country mil-
lions of citizens strove to make
themselves soldiers. Factory hands
and retired ambassadors, graybeards
and boys in their 'teens, middleaged
men holding themselves taut after
twenty years of easy living in the
memory of their former prowess in
war, paraded side by side in working
clothes with armlets LDV. Many of
them wore medals. Many made arms
during the daytime which they learn-
ed to use in anticipation at night.
For strange though it seems, and
this was part of the miracle of Dun-
kirk, the British people were already
thinking not of averting defeat but
of earning victory.
Never in all her history had vic-
tory seemed more remote or improb-
able to Great Britain than in 1940,
Yet in the very hourwhen in the
midst of unparalleled disasters he of-
fered his colleagues blood, toil,
sweat and tears, Prime Minister Win-
ston Churchill defined his country's
goal. "You ask," he said, "what is
our aini. I can answer in one word:
Victory—victory at all costs, victory
in. pite of all terrors, victory, how-
ever hard and long the road niay be.
Fon' without victory there is no sur-
vival."
Already with empty arsenals and
housewives mobilizing their pots and
pans to make enough fighter planes
to save London from the fate of
Warsaw, Britain was laying down
her four -engine bomber program
which was to wipe out cities of Ger-
many in 1943. With invasion hourly
expected she was sending out her
only armored division on the long
sea passage around the Cape of
Good Hope to guard the Nile Valley
and lay the foundations of a land
offensive which was to chase Mar-
shal Erwin Rommel from El Alamein
to Enfidaville and pound Colonel
General Jergen vo Arnim into ultim-
ate surrender.
Meanwhile, the angry Germans,
slowly and incredulously realizing
that the British would not snake
peace, prepared with Teuton thor-
oughness to smash them to a pulp.
The men of Bordeaux, who had good
reason to know the might and ruth-
less power of Germany, supposed
that island state that had withstood
Napoleon would have its neck wrung
in a few weeks like a chicken, as one
of them said.
And by the standards of mathe-
matics it appeared only too - likely.
The swastika rose over the Channel
Islands; Mussolini's legions, outnum-
bering General Sir Archibald Wav-
ell"s intrepid few by ten to one,
marched into Egypt; the Japanese
sharpened their swords at the gates
of Hong Kong, and the victorious
graycoated hordes danced and revell-
ed in the streets of a dazed and rav-
ished Paris preparatory to the final
triumph amid burning villages and
the smouldering debris of London.
All the while the long procession of
barges floated down the rivers and
canals of Europe towards the Chan-
nel ports, endless columns of gray
and steel moved to their appointed
places and the great, black laden
airplanes gathered in their thousands
on the airfields of northern France,
Belgium, Holland and Norway. And
as the world watched it suddenly
realized that England was going to
fight.
"Hitler knows," Britain's inspired
leader said, "that he will have to
break us in this island or lose the
war. If we can stand up to him all
Europe may be free and the life of
the world may move forward into the
broad sunlit uplands. But if we fail,
then the whole world, including the
United States, including all that we
have known and cared for, will sink
into the abyss of a new dark age
made more sinister and perhaps more
protracted by the lights of a pervert-
ed science.
"Let us therefore brace ourselves
to our duties and so bear ourselves
that if the British Empire and its
commonwealth last for a, thousand
years, men will still say, 'This was
their finest hour,'."
Production of
Alfalfa Seed
(Experimental ]'arms :News)
Successful alfalfa seed production
depends upon a number of factors,.
some of which are within the grow-
er's control and others upon a favor-
able 'season, says D. 3. Armstrong,
Central Experimental Farms, Ottawa.
The stand should be free from nox-
ious weeds, especially those that are
difficult to remove in seed -cleaning,
Thin stands of alfalfa yield more
Seeds than think stands. While this
latter faolor le not entirely under the
grower's control, especially whore,
Production of hay is' the primary con'
sidoratioii and seed production Mehl -
ental, nevertheless where conditions,
such as winter -killing or a dry spring
have brought about a thin stand, the
chances of a good seed own are in.
creased,
A profitable seed. crop also depends
on a season with low soil moisture
that prevents too rank and rapid
growth and encourages plenty of
bloom. After the onset of blooming
alternating spells of cloudy and sun-
shiny weather with moderate wind
and occasional showers are consid-
ered most favorable for pod -setting.
In Dreier that Rowers shalt set pods,
they must be "tripped." Tills is
brought about by the visits of such
insects as bumble -bees (honey bees
are relatively ineilectise) or by
bright weather. Tripping due to ivea"
Cher conditions results in a high 1110 -
portion of self -fertilised seed , which
is undesirable from the standpoint.
of vigor in the next generation.'
Considering the importance of wild
bees in seed production possible
nesting sites along fences and woods
should be left undisturbed,
TiHUFISDAY, SEPTaMSaR Z 1943
A good seed crop of alfalfa de-
pends upon a thin stand 08 'weed -free
alfalfa. The season must he favorable
throughout and at flowerii8 time
there must bo a sufficient population
of effective tripping fllseets snob, as
wild bees.
Due to the acute need for ` forage
sped, farmers should oarefnily con-
sider the possibility of nutting sec-
ond crop p'lfalfa for seed for home
use, Those who wish to grow reed,
eyed seed should get information
from Production Service, Dominion
Department of Agriculture, Ottawas
Noting the high price charged for
a silver fox fur, a matron invested in
a fox ranch, placed equipment, hired
an expert to run, then asked: "Flow
many times each year can we slain
the foxes?"
His answer, completely satisfying
to her, was: "Well, it's safe to skin
them two or three times a year, but
after that they begin to get a little
sore,"
Want and For Sale Ads, 1 week 25c
Invasion Barges Latest "High and Wide" Rail Loads
Tstn problem of the transportation
by rail of huge single -unit mate-
rials needed for Canada's war effort
has presented a challenge which has
been met and mastered by the in-
genuity of Canadian railwaymen.
These "oversize" shipments are mov-
ing daily over rail lines in all sections
of the Dominion. To railwaymen.they
are known as "high and wide" loads.
They require special care and skill in
loading and many of them also neces-
sitate special operating arrangements.
The. Canadian 'National Railways
recently handled what is said to be
the largest single -unit freight ship-
ment ever carried by a railway on this
continc e. This was a 150 -ton tank
loaded on three flat ears which was
transported.. from.,Montreal.to the
Government's new synthetic rubber
plant at Sarnia. The latest "high and
wide" loads carried by tic Canadian
National are invasion barges, now
forming such an essentinl part of the
equipment of illus' lighting forces.
The upper picture sherds one of these
invasion barges loaded on flat cars
enroute to a ('nw di:"m port over,the
lines of the National System. Other
unusual freight .loads Illustrated in
the drawungs are: 1. An army laundry
unit. 2. A. sixty -foot tug built at
Owen Sound and shipped by C.N.R.
to the seaboard. 3. A Nage propeller
enroute to a shipbuilding plant. 4. A
marine boiler 'which required a
specially equipped car and fixtures to
prevent rolling. 5. The big tank loaded
on three flat cars,for the record trip.
Gonne
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