Britain today prepared for wha! was regarded as an "almost inevitable" attempt to invade England by Chan-eelier, Adol€ Hitler's armed forces as anxiety heightened over the fate of more than 400,000" Allied troops trapped by the Nazis in the Flanders; and Artois regions.
Residents of towns in Kent, on tive south-eastern coast, this morning got fan inkling of the terrible struggle going on across the English Channel fs they listened to the heavy gunfire Of big naval units off the coast of France. The. capitulation of the Belgian Army has robbed the Allies of more than $00,000 troops and open~ fed the door to the important coastal towns of Zeebrugge. Ostend and, Perhaps, Dunkirk, the last ports in Belgium and northern France still held by the Allies, British observers said.
The Belgian forces had been hold-Ing the section stretching from Menin, west of the Eseaut River, to the North Sea and north-east to Zeebrugge, was pointed out German possession of the channel paris may make London a salient of the Allied front and force Britain to shift nearly li of her seaborne com-yee to south-western ports, since German guns would command. the Straits of Dover and Nazi planes could harass mercantile (rome f0" down the Channel These factors, coupled with the! threat 6f invasion," will compel Britain extensively. thus robbing London of most of her sea. trade,
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